


Across the New Divide

by ellie_kat89



Category: Terminator (1984), Terminator Salvation (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellie_kat89/pseuds/ellie_kat89
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the year 2024 cyborg turned Resistance soldier Marcus Wright will partake in the most important mission of his new life, save Kyle Reese from the T-800 in 1984. But can the strands of time really be changed so simply and destiny fooled so easily? A story of love, second chances, and sacrifices set post Judgment-Day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This follows the ending of the novelized version of Terminator Salvation; Marcus lives at the end and John brings Marcus back to life after he destroys the T-800. Thank you to Marianne for betaing ;). The lyrics spread throughout the story is _New Divide_ by Linkin Park. Written for scifibigbang 2011.

  
**Across the New Divide**   


**Prologue** ; _August 13, 2018_

 

  
_I remembered black skies, the lightning all around me  
I remembered each flash as time began to blur  
Like a startling sign that fate had finally found me  
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve_   


 

What does a man do with himself when he really isn’t a man at all, but only partly human, and the rest is all metal and mechanics? Marcus found himself in this new world alive and dead, the same and yet so altered that he really couldn’t be Marcus Wright at all. He felt human, his brain still carried the memories and demons of his past, and he slept, ate, and wanted like any other man. But none of that mattered when he’d been able to see inside of himself and saw nothing but metal and little working parts.

He’d had a lot of time to think over the last two days that he’d been ordered by Kate Connor to lay back and let himself heal. He healed quickly that much he could tell as new skin began to cover his once naked hand, but the damage done to his heart by the T-800 would take longer to heal. For reasons he couldn’t understand Connor had brought him back to life, shocked his heart into beating once more even after the T-800 had been destroyed.

As pain radiated from where his heart struggled to beat Connor had bodily dragged him from the Skynet facility, hoisted him onto a chopper and then had nuked the whole facility to Hell. Marcus could only remember bits and pieces of the flight back to base. Kyle’s shocked face at the sight of his new friend’s hand and chest, Connor looking over his injuries, and Blair’s voice from the front of the chopper.

There’d been other birds in the air that night, their lights twinkling in the distance, looking blurry and doubled in Marcus’ skewed vision. It seemed that the life giving shock (if one who was mostly dead could say such a thing) had done more than restart his heart because he couldn’t see worth shit for a day afterwards. The lights though had reminded him sharply of the wide expanse of stars he’d seen as a child in Texas with his brother. Before life had become Hell on earth. Seeing those lights, Marcus felt inexplicably like crying, if his body was even capable of such a thing. But he did, a few stray tears running down the sides of his face.

Foremost on his mind that night was the wish that Connor had just left him there to melt with the rest of those fucking machines.

* * * *

He didn’t receive a visitor until late on the second day. They were alone when Connor came in, Kate having given him an almost clean bill of health before excusing herself. Though the woman hadn’t been _friendly_ , she had cared for him with an air of professional detachment. Marcus was just thankful that she hadn’t aimed a gun at him to blow his head off.

John pulled up an old stool next to Marcus’ cot and settled himself down for what seemed to be a lengthy talk. The left side of Connor’s face was bandaged and he walked with a limp but other than that he seemed healthy enough after the fight with the T-800.

“How are you feeling Marcus?” Connor began, speaking after a long moment.

Marcus shrugged, face passive, “been better, been worse.”

“Yes, I can imagine so.”

There was a stretch of silence that followed this.

“I’ve already asked Kyle Reese how you two happened to come across each other, but now I want to hear your story, how you came to be.”

Marcus glanced around at the room he was in, dimly lighted and stark. It was a hospital room in a way but mostly Marcus figured it was a cell, Kate always locked the door before leaving him, and more than once he’d seen an armed guard outside the door.

“First, I have questions,” Marcus finally said, swinging his gaze back around to Connor’s face.

The other man nodded to continue.

“What are you going to do with me?”

“That’s up to you, you are not a prisoner here and if you wish to leave we will not stop you, but my hope is that you will stay to fight with us. We could use you,” John replied.

Marcus snorted. “I doubt others think the same.”

“You’ve earned my trust and that should be enough for now, later you can prove yourself to the other troops.”

Marcus didn’t know what to say so he didn’t say anything for awhile. Did he really want to join their ranks? Fight a war against something that in Marcus’ opinion seemed impossible to beat. He’d been synced with Skynet for a time, knew how powerfully advanced they were.

“Why didn’t you just let me die there?”

“You fought the Terminator same as I did and that allowed me to set that place to blow, with their northern base gone, they’ve taken a major hit. You are mostly responsible for that and you saved my life in more ways than one; I don’t take that sort of thing lightly,” he answered simply.

Satisfied with the man’s answers for now, Marcus said, “what do you want to know about me?”

“When you came here you thought you were human, was so certain of it, you must have had a life before this. Do you know how you ended up like this?”

Marcus chuckled sarcastically. “Have you ever wondered if being part machine wasn’t my worst attribute?”

John’s eyebrows raised in question. “What do you mean?”

“I was on death row, for murder; killed two cops.”

“Why?”

“Why did I kill them?”

John nodded.

“It was a car jacking gone bad, my brother was shot too. The trial was quick, I confessed, no point not to. I killed a man that didn’t deserve it, why prolong the inevitable? While I waited for my day of execution a scientist for Cyberdyne made me an offer. They wanted me to donate my body to science and I signed the fucking papers on the day they killed me. She said I’d be aiding _humanity_ , what a bunch of bullshit that turned out to be.”

“You know, dieing’s easier than I’d thought it would be, it’s just giving yourself away to the darkness and then nothingness. When I woke up, or whatever the hell it was, it was like coming to after a short nap. Except that I thought I really was in Hell. The place stunk and burned, I was covered in mud. The whole place was underground except that everything was in ruins, collapsed. I crawled my way out to the surface and it was raining hard, a wet, dead wasteland. I started walking and didn’t stop until I hit LA.”

“And then you found Kyle,” John added.

“Yeah.”

“Tell me about that.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“The kid’s smart, saved my ass before I even knew his name. He was alone besides the little mute girl, he mentioned his father and I got the impression that he had just died recently. He was pissed off that I was wearing a resistance fighter’s jacket.”

Marcus’ eyes wandered away from Connor, suddenly uncomfortable. Truth was that Kyle had reminded him of Sam when they were younger, and he didn’t like being reminded of his brother.

“He explained things to me, Judgement Day, Skynet, everything. I stayed the night in their camp and then he took me down to where I might find a car. He and Star wanted to find the resistance and I wanted to head North, to figure out what happened to me in the 15 years I was supposedly dead. A drone showed up and we hightailed it out of LA, made it to the desert before we ran into some HKs. They took Kyle and Star, and I wasn’t going to let the machines just take them but I couldn’t get them out before another HK got me. It had me in its hand when the planes came, it dropped me in the river and I washed up on shore. I’m sure you know the rest.”

Connor nodded, seeming deep in thought. “Blair said you wanted to go after your friends, Kyle and Star, why would you do that?”

“He saved my life, or whatever it is I got, I don’t take that sort of thing lightly either.”

Connor smirked.

“So you still want me to fight even though you know I’m a murderer?” Marcus asked, expecting the man to order him of their resistance base.

“Many of us were many things before Judgment Day, but that was another life, another time, we’re only human after all,” John said with a glint in his eye. “Will you fight with us?”

The answer was surprisingly easy. “Yes.”

John stood, pleased. “Good. I have a special mission for you.”

Suddenly Marcus’ suspicions grew. “What?”

“Protect Kyle Reese, at all costs.”

Marcus wished he knew what the other man was thinking in that moment, all the secrets that John Connor carried around inside him. Blair had called him a prophet but Marcus wasn’t sure he believed in such a thing.

“You wanna explain something to me? How can a kid not even old enough to shave be your father?”

Connor looked at him steadily, barely blinking. Suddenly Connor’s façade dropped, showing the weary man beneath. He sat back down on the stool, rubbing a hand down the good side of his face.

“I’ve known about the war since before I can remember. My mother knew even before I was born. In ten years Skynet will have the technology to send Terminators back in time, in an effort to change the future. The resistance steals the Time Displacement Equipment and I will send Kyle Reese back to save my mother. I will be the result.”

Marcus wasn’t sure if he should laugh or not but he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to do so. It all sounded ridiculously believable. Time travel, cyborgs, nuclear war, coming back from the dead, what would be next, tap dancing penguins?

“Do you understand why he’s so important? Skynet knows, he’s number one on their terminate list.”

“And you’re number two right?” Marcus asked, remembering back to the conversations with Blair and his Sync with Skynet. Blair had said that Connor had brought them back from the brink of extinction, rallied the resistance together; made them what they were.

John answered only with a stiff nod.

“I’ll take the job,” he announced finally. Kyle had grown on him, more than he ever imagined a person could, and he thought that protecting Kyle was more for Kyle’s sake than the future’s.

Connor nodded. “Kate said that you’re healthy enough to leave whenever you want, I arranged a bunk for you. Any other questions Marcus?”

In that moment there were so many things going through his head, it felt like there was a division in his head, what was _then_ and what was now. Finally he thought of Krogan and her words to him, wondering if second chances were really possible; if someone like him even deserved them.

“Do you think everyone deserves a second chance?” he asked at last, blue eyes meeting hazel.

Connor cocked his head to the side, surprised to hear such a personal question. “Yes, I do.” The other man stood but then stopped once more. “I asked Kate to remove your Skynet interface chip one of the times you were under, but as it turned out there was no need to. In Kate’s words it’d already been ripped out of the base of your skull. When did you do that?”

“At Skynet, a general ‘fuck you.’”

For the first time something that could be called a smile crossed John’s face. “I would have liked to have seen that.”

Finally he opened the door, only to reveal Blair on the other side, looking slightly guilty and Marcus realized that she had probably been trying to listen. Connor seemed unsurprised to see her there and didn’t seem to care that she might have heard everything. She looked the same as she had the first time Marcus had laid eyes on her, dressed in her flying gear, with her war-like paint across her eyes.

“How’s the northern quadrant looking Williams?” Connor asked.

Blair stood straighter, almost at attention. “Clear sir, no enemy activity in San Francisco, but from the looks of things they’re moving east like you thought they would.”

“Good work Williams.”

“Thank you sir, when do you want me up again?”

Connor clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Give yourself a rest Blair, you’ve earned it.”

With that Connor walked off down the corridor, disappearing around a corner leaving the two alone. Marcus hadn’t seen her since she had helped him escape and he found himself staring, taken aback at how beautiful she was. Fuck, I’m reborn as a freaking robot and then turn into a sap.

She came into the room as Marcus sat up, swinging his legs around so that they hung over the side of the bed. The skin over his chest had healed, covering his metal innards, but his hand was still uncovered and he felt self-conscious, especially with only his pants on.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him, scanning his body with a quick up and down flicker of her brown eyes.

He shrugged. _Fine_ didn’t seem to cover it but saying he felt like a hunk of metal sounded too depressing to even utter. Blair stepped closer, close enough where he could touch her if he reached his hand out, and then stopped. It was her that touched him first, her cool hand resting against the side of his neck, her skin scratching against two-day-old beard, before she ran her fingers down to where his heart beat could be felt. Marcus shivered at her touch, both terrified and elated at the desire that coursed through his body. He’d thought long and hard about a good many things in the two days he’d been confined to bed, comparing his memories of being a man to what he was now. There were differences, glaring ones that he had denied before, he never seemed to tire, didn’t need to drink or eat, though he’d found himself able to do so. But other than that everything was the way it should be. He had wanted her at the racetrack too, but now it was much stronger, inflamed by the connection he felt towards her.

No one had risked everything for him before, she could have easily been killed and she knew what the risks were when she helped him escape. Even after she knew what he was, Blair still broke him out. The feeling inside of him was something he knew he wouldn’t let go of.

Marcus stood suddenly, noticeably startlingly Blair, who let her hand fall to her side; her eyes lifted then to meet his and she watched on tenterhooks as his clear blue eyes roamed over her face. Like she’d done to him, he lifted his arm, his good hand reaching out and settling softly on the side of her face, fingers buried in wavy hair. And like him she shivered when he ran the pad of his thumb over her slightly parted lips.

“I need to ask you a question,” he began, waiting for her jerky nod before continuing. “Are you scared of me?” He raised his mostly skinless hand in example, watching as he made his metal fingers move, still startled that they were even _his_ fingers.

He moved his thumb away from her lips, letting her answer.

Blair looked him in the eyes intently, wanting him to understand perfectly before they got into something they couldn’t back away from. Raising her arm she threaded her fingers through his metal ones.

“I see a man, not a machine,” she replied evenly. “And no, I am certainly not scared of you.”

He let the words sink in for a moment before acting, moving his hand to the back of her neck to drag her closer to him, kissing her for the first time with an intensity that startled them both.

Marcus Wright had done a lot, seen a lot, done enough stupid stuff to be able to fully understand the gift that had been handed to him. In his old life he’d never loved, certainly never like this. His life before his execution had been consumed with the thrill of lawlessness, of thinking he was badass and invincible, but then reality finally caught up to him and he was killed for his sins. If John Connor believed the term ‘second chance’ applied to him, then he’d go along with it, but only if it meant that he could fight for the resistance, and kiss Blair Williams everyday, as long as she’d let him.


	2. Chapter I

**Chapter I** ; _October 4, 2021_

The others called it simply _darkness_ , but Marcus, always ready for a sarcastic comment or two, liked terming the remnants of the nuclear waste that flouted high above in the atmosphere _sludge_. The sludge was worse certain times of the year, reaching their worst in the winter. The sun would struggle to even be seen at these times, the rays barely touching the earth, and if the sky wasn’t a muddy brown it would appear blood red with the rising or setting of the sun.

Today, the sky was a murky tan with tinges of brown running through it, the sun showing the bands of filth that ran through the earth’s atmosphere. HKs were difficult to spot when the sky was this bad and so considering Marcus’ superior eye set had been ordered to be lookout. The 132nd, squad two, were out on a recovery mission, going deep into the interior in an effort to gather supplies and weapons. They were somewhere in Utah Marcus figured, hundreds of miles from home, picking through the medical supplies at a partly collapsed MedStop building off of the old I-15.

“Anything Wright?” Perry asked, coming out of the building, a bag in hand.

Justin Perry was a short man, but what he lost in height he made up for in tenacity and speed. Marcus respected him as a leader, not something he could say about all of the Squadron leaders in the 132nd.

“Not a thing Sarg,” he answered, shouldering his rifle. “Anything inside worth takin’ home?”

Perry shrugged, leaning against the side of the old brick building and lighting a cigarette. Few still smoked post J-Day, cigarettes being in short supply in the post-apocalyptic world, but he held onto the habit with the stubbornness of a dog; in fact Marcus had seen the other man go to extremes to find packs that might have survived in shops and convenience stores. Perry turned back then, hollering loudly into the building.

“Alright men let’s head out, ‘bout time to head back.”

Squad two was six strong, besides Perry and Marcus there was PFC Jose Vasquez, CPL Rosalyn Smith, PFC Timothy Zane, and of course Kyle Reese, currently at the rank of Corporal. Kyle was the youngest in their group and no one ever let him forget it, particularly Vasquez. Their ribbing was all in good fun, some stress relief in the middle of nuclear winter was always hard to come by, but Marcus knew it bothered him. In fact, if times were normal and Marcus had met Kyle in other time and place, he probably would have called the younger man an over-achiever. Despite his youth Kyle was the best shot besides Marcus, and the young man seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to the machines.

Their troop filed out of the building, Kyle bringing up the rear. They made sure their loot was secularly in their packs before they set off down the road, everyone anxious to get home. The abandoned town they were in was small, so it hadn’t been bombed by Skynet at the beginning of the war, but it had been clearly visited several times in the past by HKs. There were craters down mainstreet and many of the buildings were damaged, if not completely destroyed. A few though seemed untouched and as Marcus passed by he glanced through the windows. Seeing his reflection in one window clean enough for it, made him pause momentarily. On the trip through Nevada they’d run into some trouble from a patrolling T-7T and Marcus had taken a ricochet to the forehead, revealing the shiny metal beneath his skin. Even after three years, it was still enough to startle him, the actual sight of what was really beneath his human appearance.

Shaking his head, trying to dispel the sudden heaviness from his mind, he continued on.

“Everything alright Wright?” Perry asked, having glanced at Marcus.

“Fine.”

Perry nodded but Marcus knew that his leader knew better. It’d taken two long years for the men and women of 132nd to tolerate him in their ranks, some trusted him but others simply ignored his existence, or gave him a wide berth. At first it’d resulted in a lot of anger, but by this point acceptance had settled in, and he was thankful at least that there were people he could honestly call friends. His fellow fighters in Squad Two trusted him, it had been hard earned, gaining their trust but it had been worth the wait. Having a purpose, fighting for a cause he believed in more and more each day, had turned out to be more worthwhile than he ever imagined it being.

It was quiet times like this, with only his thoughts and the sounds of their footsteps, that he really wished music still existed. What he wouldn’t give for a little AC/DC to break up the monotony. Marcus sighed and shifted the rifle’s position from his shoulder down to his side.

They were nearing their jeep, parked on the exit ramp, when Marcus heard and felt the sudden rumble. He stopped dead in his tracks, holding his breath for a minute, waiting. The others stopped, turning back to Marcus questioningly.

“Marcus?” Kyle asked, hand tightening on his gun.

Marcus held a finger up for silence, shooting a quick glance in Kyle’s direction. Unlike the others Marcus held no rank, Connor had offered him one several times, but he had always refused. In post-apocalyptic Hell, he didn’t really give a shit if he ever got promoted; in fact, he considered himself more of a hired gun than anything else – a hired gun with a particularly clear insight into the enemy.

Waiting a moment longer the rumble came again and this time everyone else heard it too. Perry’s eyes widened in alarm.

“HK, from the Northwest, should be within sight in less than two minutes. Hide!” Marcus rambled off, his machine nervous system giving him a good bearing of where the HK was.

Acting purely on instinct, Marcus grabbed hold of Kyle, who was standing closest to him and dragged him off the road. The others followed. When they’d been coming into town, Marcus had spotted a creek that ran parallel with I-15 and a drainage pipe that emptied into it. The creek, probably once a thriving place was mostly dead, a few trees tried feebly to live but they looked close to giving up. The creek too was bone dry.

They slid down the embankment, their feet hitting the creek bed at a dead run. The pipe was a few yards to the left and they reached it quickly; it was just big enough for them to squeeze into. Kyle led the way, crawling in, followed closely by Marcus, Smith, Perry, Zane, and Vasquez.

“What the fuck is an HK doing this far East?” Perry rasped, out of breath as he leaned back against the concrete side of the dirty pipe.

No one answered him, though Perry really hadn’t expected an answer. The six waited on baited breath as the sounds of the HK came closer and closer. Once upon a time Marcus had tasted death on the lips of a woman about to die herself, but the sounds of Skynet hunting them down was like the grim reaper. Feeling his heart rate increase, Marcus swallowed hard and closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind settle. He’d found through the last three years that the best way to survive was to clear his head, he had seen more than one soldier panic and then die. He had to focus on a goal, and that goal was getting back to base (to _Blair_ ) and getting Kyle out alive. He had never forgotten his promise to Connor and had ended up taking more than one bullet for Kyle Reese because of it. But what would kill a normal man, barely stung him.

“What’s it doing?” Smith whispered softly, her legs pulled up to her chest in the cramped space.

Perry shook his head, muttering “quiet.”

Marcus wondered the same, if the HK was just doing its normal patrol, then it was hanging around an empty town much longer than normal. Then suddenly with a whistle of a firing cannon, there was a great explosion that seemed to rock the ground. The roars of flames covered Perry’s next orders, but Vasquez seemed to understand. The closest to the end of the pipe, he crawled back out and then reappeared only a few short seconds later, his pale.

“It blew the jeep, it knows we’re here,” he announced.

“Fuck!” their leader exclaimed. “Must have read the heat signature. Where is it now?”

Vasquez nodded his head northward. “Over town.”

Perry took a deep breath. “Alright this is the plan, everyone out the other side. Run along the road until you reach that bend about a quarter of a mile back. Then, over the hills there. Got it?”

They nodded affirmative.

With Marcus going first, the small group slid and crawled their way out the other side. Emerging once again out into the weak sunlight they moved quickly. That part of I-15 had been built up, with ditches running down both sides of it, providing enough cover as long as they stayed down.

Running along the side of the road, bent double, Marcus dared a look back to see if the HK had spotted them. But it was still turned in the other direction, searching amongst the rubble for humans. With the air tinged with sweat, dirt, and a metallic scent that Marcus didn’t care for, they rounded the corner finally, but they didn’t slow down. Planting his foot and hand hard on the steep hillside, Marcus looked up at its height. Made mostly out of the red rock that made Utah famous with the tourists (back when there was such a thing), it was full of good hand and foot holds, but climbing it would prove difficult none the less, especially when they needed speed.

“Fuck,” Marcus cursed as he climbed up a foot or two, only to have his hand slip a second later. He dangled precariously at the edge of falling for a moment before grabbing hold again, digging his finger nails into the loose dirt.

“Move Wright,” Perry ordered below him, voice a whisper.

Swallowing hard, Marcus followed orders, hearing the others following him up the side. Quicker than what Marcus thought possible, he reached the top. The sun seemed to be almost stronger that high up and Marcus had to squint to see what was on the other side. There was a building, a base really, planted almost randomly in the arid country side. It was sprawling and large, in too good of shape to be anything human or to have been built before Judgment Day.

Marcus looked back over the way he had just climbed. “Perry, you gotta see this.”

Perry sighed, brow wet from excursion. “Fuck, I’m tired of surprises.”

Marcus reached down a helping hand and his commanding officer took it, pulling Perry the rest of the way up. The ridge of the hill was narrow and Marcus had to carefully balance so that he wouldn’t topple backwards as Perry joined him on the top. As Marcus had suspected, the other man had the same sort of reaction.

“Who would have thought Skynet would be way out here?”

“Whatever it is, it can’t be good. They’re hiding out here,” he added, for this was the only reason why Skynet would be in the middle of no where. Marcus had never seen or heard of the enemy having a base in such a remote location, usually they liked to set up in the remnants of big cities. Marcus was nothing if not realistic, the humans were a dying race, Skynet had no reason to hide.

The rest joined them quickly and then they started down the other side, skidding and sliding as carefully as possible in the loose dirt and rock. Once on the ground they found adequate cover in the form of an outcropping of small, mostly dead trees.

Marcus kneeled in the dirt, hidden behind a tree and trained his eyes on the building. It was about maybe a mile away, and looked a lot further away than it had earlier from the top of the ridge.

He heard rustling behind him and turned, watching as Vasquez pulled the maps out of his pack.

“Nothing like this on the map, the valley extends for another mile and a half in that direction.” Vasquez flipped a few pages and cursed colorfully. “The hot spot is another ten miles passed that.” He looked up from the map, turning to Perry. “We’re getting kind of close boss.”

Perry blew out a frustrated breath, took off his ball cap, slapped it against his leg to dislodge some of the dirt and shoved it back on his head.

“We could just camp for the night and report back to Connor about what we found,” Perry mused, thinking aloud. “Or we could go investigate, risk some exposure, and maybe get our heads blown off by whatever security they have guarding this place. Tough decision.”

“I’ll go,” Marcus announced. “I doubt any exposure will bother me, and if I don’t come back, then you can head back home.”

Perry looked at Marcus the way he always did when he said something that Perry didn’t necessarily agree with; critically and with an edge of disbelief.

“You may be a tough son-of-a-bitch Wright, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t invincible, and it doesn’t mean fall out won’t fry your circuits,” Perry finished but then started again after a pause. “Though, your idea does have merit. At daybreak we will all go investigate… with _extreme_ caution. We’re far enough away from the hot spot to worry about it.”

They nodded simultaneously.

“It looks like it’s going to be a long night boys—” at a sharp look from Smith he stopped. “… and girl. Reese, you have the first lookout shift, then Zane, me, Wright, Smith, and Vasquez. In the morning we will see what Skynet’s been up to.”

* * * *

_October 5, 2021_

The morning dawned cold and sludgy, the earth bathed in a tan, dim light. Vasquez woke them all with a sharp word and a hard shake to the shoulder. They ate a meager breakfast from their rations and started out less than a half-an-hour later for the large, sprawling building in the distance. They walked in proper formation, guns loaded and cocked, ready for anything that the machines might throw at them.

As they closed in on the Skynet base, something quickly became apparent. There were no guards, no machines standing by – in fact, everything was quiet, deathly quiet. The only sound was their boots scraping on the dusty, dry ground and the hard wind that flew across the mostly flat land.

They were now just within steps of the building and they could now see that the walls were plain cinder block, but the roof was made completely out of solar panels. The place was strangely low lying for a Skynet base, there was a loading dock and locked rolling door just tall enough to fit a T-1 through.

“Must also be subterranean, whatever it is,” Perry thought aloud, glancing down at his feet as if he could see through the dirt and rock beneath their feet.

“This place is spooky,” Smith whispered as a lone hawk flew overhead.

Perry turned a sharp eye on her, but nodded none the less. “I want Reese and Wright with me. Smith, Vasquez, and Zane – I want the three of you to go around to the right and meet us on the other side. Keep a sharp eye out for booby traps.”

The other three nodded and set off while Marcus’ group went to the left.

“Maybe it’s been abandoned?” Kyle remarked as they turned the corner so that the once unseen side of the building was to their right.

“Might be. Could also be that there are machines on the inside waiting to blow us to smithereens,” Perry added, rolling his neck back until it cracked. “I’d kill for a smoke right now.”

The three walked on, realizing as the minutes passed that the building was much longer than it was wide. Two minutes later they reached the other side and stopped in the middle to wait for the rest of their team, but they never came.

Twenty minutes later, after they had broken into the building and descended down into the bowels of the building, they discovered three unrecognizable burned corpses. Standing over the still smoking bodies was three flame thrower carrying T-600s. Beyond them, in a room partitioned off with glass Marcus Wright unknowingly glimpsed his future. Every thick electrical wire supplied with power from the solar panels on the roof, ran into that room. Those clusters of wires could create unknowable amounts of kilowatts. Marcus knew power and he knew engines, and he knew that for whatever purpose, Skynet was building themselves an engine powerful enough to burn the whole damn world to the ground.


	3. Chapter II

**Chapter II** ; _October 10, 2021_

_So give me reason to prove me wrong, to wash this memory clean  
Let the floods cross the distance in your eyes  
Give me reason to fill this hole, connect the space between  
Let it be enough to reach the truth that lies across this new divide_

 

Injured, thirsty, and walking home, they were rescued finally three days later by none other than Blair Williams and two others in an Apache helicopter. Marcus decided then that all the times he had seen the woman he loved, that this was the best time of all.

After defeating the two T-600s that had killed Smith, Zane, and Vasquez they had been forced to begin walking back to their base in California. The walking hadn’t been fun, nor the lack of water or food, but they were lucky to be alive.

When they got back to base they were greeted at once by Kate Connor; her hands were on her hips and she looked them over with a critical eye.

“Sergeant Perry, Corporal Reese, you can both have your injuries checked out at triage,” she said immediately, turning to watch as the two men limped off into the compound.

Once gone, Kate turned to Marcus. “Everything in functioning order Marcus? You’re looking a bit banged up.”

He chuckled grimly, “nothing that won’t heal in a day or two.”

 _Banged up_ actually was an understatement, when met with a flame thrower his skin practically melted away from his endoskeleton. A large portion of his left side was now skinless and blackened.

Kate nodded. “Good. John wants a debriefing if you’re well enough.”

Marcus shrugged, a heavy lifting of his damaged shoulder. “No problemo.”

She stilled suddenly, eyes widened.

“What, do I have something between my teeth?” Marcus asked sarcastically. Long ago Marcus thought that he’d stopped shocking Kate Connor but apparently he was mistaken.

“No… just something John told me once. Come on, he’s waiting,” she finished, still looking confounded enough for Marcus to wonder.

She led him deep into their subterranean base, marching along towards what everyone simply dubbed the ‘war room.’ More specifically it was closer to being Connor’s office, filled with maps that he used for strategic planning. They passed many as they walked along, a few nodded in greeting but most kept their heads down. Marcus had noticed that as the war went on, that their numbers continued to grow. Drifters started coming in after they destroyed Skynet central in San Francisco, many joined the soldiers already in John Connor’s Techcom unit, but some were old, or many had children. That many mouths to feed had turned into a big problem that he knew weighed on many minds.

The children that they passed stared wide eyed at him, stunned by what he hid under his skin. A sick, squiggly feeling entered his gut and mind but he swallowed it down, knowing that if he had a stomach that he would have hurled. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on a point just above Kate’s shoulder.

Suddenly he heard his name and turned, surprised to see Suzie Vasquez standing there, her eyes teary and fearful.

“My Jose…”

His throat tightened; he had tried not to think about it, about how half of his Squad was just suddenly _gone._ It had been hard learned, finding out that he couldn’t turn off his feelings anymore, he had changed so much since joining the Resistance, since meeting Blair. It had now become essential to feel, because if he did, he knew that he remained human. But that didn’t mean that the sickening mixture of rage at the machines and sadness at their loss wasn’t overwhelming.

“I’m sorry Suzie,” he muttered finally, looking away from her, not able to bear the look in her eyes.

Almost the instant he looked away, she had thrown her arms around him, sobbing. Marcus stiffened, stunned that she would when so much of his endoskeleton was exposed. Awkwardly, he wrapped his good arm around her shoulders. She sagged against him and he held her up, tears prickling intensely at the back of his eyes.

Marcus could sense Kate waiting behind him but then she stepped closer to his back so that when she spoke he could hear her. “We’ll be waiting, take your time,” she whispered, voice soft.

He nodded and distantly heard her retreating footsteps. He let Suzie sob until her son Juan turned the corner, and he took his mother with a nod of gratitude towards Marcus, leading her away; whispering soft, reassuring Spanish.

It took a moment for Marcus to realize that he was standing in the middle of a narrow hallway, a few curious, stand-offish eyes trained on him. He sucked in a deep breath, looking down to realize that his hands were shaking, even the one that had lost its skin covering. Running his good hand over his face, he turned quickly and continued down the corridor. He reached the metal door after a minute and knocked hard.

“Come in!” Connor called from inside.

He opened the door and walked in. Behind the old, beaten up wooden desk was Connor, going over a map. Kate was at his side and in the background was Barnes, these days being called Lieutenant; he nodded curtly at Marcus in greeting and Marcus did the same in return. The two would never be friendly but they could occasionally be civil to one another, fighting against a common enemy put most things into perspective.

Connor put down his pen and looked up, eyes flickering over Marcus’ injuries.

“What happened?” he asked simply, referring to both the burns covering his body and the circumstances that led them to being three fighters down.

Never being one to beat around the bush, Marcus began quickly. “The HK came first, but we evaded capture. It wasn’t until we got away from I-15 that shit hit the fan,” Marcus began, sitting down heavily in the chair across from Connor’s. “We climbed over a hill out of sight of the HK and on the other side we stumbled across a new Skynet facility. Their building something I’ve never seen before.”

Connor’s head jerked back in surprise. “You went inside?”

“Reese, Perry, and I did after Smith, Zane, and Vasquez disappeared. The T-600s inside had a fire cannon,” he responded, gesturing up and down his left side.

“Inside, what did you see?” John asked, leaning forward with his eyebrows furrowed deeply.

Marcus glanced to the side, trying to explain what he’d seen. “Equipment, not like mass production, but something else, something worse. It was a superconductor, enough power could be shoved into that facility to light up the world twice over.”

Barnes moved closer than, stepping out of the shadows. “A new weapon?”

Connor shook his head, looking from Kate to Marcus. “Can you describe what it looked like?”

“It was a room within a room, partitioned off with heavy blast walls. All of the power, nuclear and electrical hookups were all going to the inner room. There were six hookups surrounding a larger wattage one in the middle of the floor. The room was otherwise empty.”

When there was another knock Kate opened it, revealing Blair. She’d changed out of her flight gear and had her long brown hair swept into a ponytail; as soon as the door was open her eyes immediately found Marcus and she sent him a small smile. Ignoring the others in the room she walked forward and gave him a kiss on the good side of his cheek, her lips lingering a long moment before she pulled away. Marcus touched her hand with his good one, fingers threading through hers a moment before he pulled away. Blair turned then and leaned against the closest wall, ready to listen.

“On the ceiling above the middle hookup, was there another one?” John asked, his face stony.

Marcus nodded and then watched as Connor made a fist in apparent anger and hit his desk. “Fuck!” he barked out before standing sharply, knocking his chair over with a clatter, beginning to pace.

“John…” Kate whispered, walking forward and touching her husband’s arm.

John stopped and breathed for a moment, trying to calm himself.

“I’m guessing it is bad then?” Marcus added, stating the obvious. “What it is?”

John swallowed and turned, facing Marcus and Blair. “Time displacement.”

The silence in the room was deafening. Marcus stared at Connor, remembering their conversation from three years before.

“Kyle.”

Connor nodded. “But it’s not supposed to be built yet… it should still be another seven years.”

Marcus chuckled grimly. “Apparently they’re ahead of schedule.”

“How is a human being supposed to go back in that thing?” Marcus asked.

“Kyle only described it to my mother, not how it worked specifically. Skynet designed it to send back Terminators to change the past in their favor; kill my mother before I can ever be conceived, kill me when I’m too young to protect myself, and if I can’t be found in the past, kill those important to the resistance. But humans can go back, it’s painful, but more than possible.”

Heavy, contemplative silence filled the room and something important niggled at the back of Marcus’ mind. He had thought about it before, but hadn’t wanted to face it if it really was true. Apparently Kyle Reese would go back in time and save humankind, a great hero, but to Marcus, Kyle was a just a kid. Friends were hard to come by for someone like Marcus, but Kyle was indeed his friend, his very good friend; they’d killed machines together in combat and had ended up shedding blood together too.

“I gotta ask you something,” Marcus began, watching as Connor directed his eyes from the map on the wall to rest on him instead. The other man nodded for him to continue.

“You told me three years ago to protect Kyle at all costs, and I’ve done that, in exchange you’ve kept haters from blowing my head off.” When Marcus met silence he continued. “Three years ago you let me ask two questions before agreeing to shadow Kyle, looking back now I would have asked different ones.”

John cocked one eyebrow. “What questions?”

“Did you ever know your father?” Marcus asked finally, feeling as well as hearing Blair move a little behind him in surprise. “You’ve _preached_ that Kyle will go back and save your mother, saving all of us from certain doom at the hands of Skynet, but no one ever mentioned what happened to Kyle.”

John’s jaw clenched hard, and Marcus knew he had hit a nerve. Finally Marcus watched as the other man swallowed hard, adams apple bobbing, before he spoke. “No.”

The word seemed to vibrate around the room, bouncing off the reinforced masonry walls before completely entering Marcus’ ears. White hot anger filled Marcus from his toes to the top of his head. He’d been protecting Kyle only to have him certainly die in the end; he knew Kyle well, in fact everyday Marcus realized that the kid was growing into a better men than he could ever hope of being, Kyle would never leave his kid, not unless he was dead.

“So, it’s a death sentence,” Marcus gritted out, fists clenching out of sight beneath the desk.

John Connor had turned into a compassionate, even tempered leader, seeming to ever only become truly angry at the machines. Whatever rage he had, he vented at the enemy, but now Marcus knew he had stepped into territory that Connor didn’t want to even think about. And he was responding in anger.

“You think I want him to die?” John hissed, glaring at Marcus.

“No, I don’t, but I think you’re a fucking hypocrite. You say every time on those radio messages of yours that there’s no fate but what we make for ourselves, but it seems to me that Kyle has never held his own fate. You manipulated him, gave him that picture of your mother and now he can’t stop staring at it. He’s ready to lay his life down for yours and he doesn’t even know the real reason why!” Marcus finished with a yell, slamming is fist down on Connor’s desk, splintering the wood.

Connor was breathing hard by this point, looking very much like he’d like to wring Marcus’ neck. “What do you expect me to do about it?” he asked, raising his arms in question. “I think about it every damn hour, I’ve thought about it since before I can remember. Ever since I was a kid wishing that my dad wasn’t dead. Do you think it’s easy? If I don’t than I stop existing, the resistance doesn’t exist.”

“Send me with him,” Marcus finally said, words coming out soft, the anger draining out of his body.

John swallowed and sat back down heavily in his chair, running his palms over his head, eyes shut tight. “I can’t do that.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“He said that it was only supposed to be him. If I send anybody else back it might mess with time, I might not even be born.”

Kate stepped forward then and John jumped when she laid her hand on his shoulder, apparently he had forgotten that there was even anyone else in the room. “John, you said so yourself that this isn’t the future your mother told you about; things have changed. When you stopped Judgment Day in ’97, it changed everything.”

He seemed to think about this for a long minute, staring at the worn grain of his desk, as if it could hold all the answers. _What if?_ Finally his eyes moved up, focusing on the half man-half machine figure before him. _What if?_

“You would do that?”

Marcus smirked. “For Kyle, not for you, don’t forget Connor I don’t give a shit about you.”

John would never tell Marcus that his view of him was rather refreshing. Wright didn’t hold him up on a pedestal like others did; didn’t think he was a messiah or a prophet.

“It would take a lot of planning,” Connor said, letting himself think about the possibilities.

Marcus wasn’t built for combat, he had vulnerabilities that terminators didn’t have, but what was a physical vulnerability also made him human. A heart that could stop, had stopped before, a brain that could be damaged. Kate had done extensive tests, Marcus would never be able to live without one or the other. But at the same time he was strong, John had seen him destroy machines, rip the heads off of T-800s, he could do what no one else could. If anyone could save his father, it was Marcus.

Thinking, his eyes moved from studying Marcus to Blair. He had more respect for that woman that he’d ever voiced before. It took a lot of guts to love the man that for the most part her comrades hated on principle alone. Blair Williams was tough as nails, their best pilot, and John knew her well enough to know what she was thinking in that moment.

“Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” Marcus said, nodding firmly.

“Marcus,” Blair finally uttered, standing up from her leaning position on the wall and walking up behind him, hand coming to rest on his shoulder. Then she spoke to John. “I’m going with him.”

Marcus turned, catching her eye, drinking in the sight of her. “Blair….”

She shook her head. “No arguments.”

He nodded. “It all settled then?” he asked John, suddenly wanting nothing more than to sleep, to get away from Barnes probing eyes and Kate’s analyzing ones. Throughout their conversation he’d never forgotten his burns.

Connor nodded. “You deserve downtime Wright, you too Williams. We will discuss this more later.”

Marcus stood. His body never felt weary but his mind did and he wanted the opportunity to shut his brain off and sleep. He turned then, departing with a nod to the Connors before opening the door and walking out. He could hear Blair’s sure, reassuring steps behind him and was comforted by them as they walked through the main corridor. Eyes turned upon Marcus as he passed, some horrified, some hostile. He couldn’t wait until he reached the little room he shared with Blair and hide himself away for a few days until all of his skin had grown back.

* * * *

A little while later Marcus found himself staring at the dirty, bloody damp cloth in his hand, thinking about what he said he’d do, thinking about all the things it meant. He threw the scrap of cloth into the corner, watching it hit the wall before it slid down to the floor.

Sighing, Marcus ran his good hand through his short hair, glad at least to have wiped the old, dry blood away from his quickly healing wounds. Even though he wasn’t, it made him feel human to at least clean himself. Water was a precious commodity but thankfully, since he didn’t drink any he could afford to use it for other reasons.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned his head only a fraction, catching Blair’s eyes as she entered their shared room. Her hair was swept up off her neck and she’d changed out of her leathers into a faded black t-shirt that fell down past her thighs.

“Are you scared?” she murmured, eyes far away, bottom lip caught between her teeth.

Marcus shrugged, throat growing tight with emotion. He loved her blindly and completely and it was in moments like this that she showed her vulnerabilities. “Terrified,” he finally answered truthfully. “To go back to before, when I don’t belong in that world of only flesh blood.” He shrugged again, glancing down at his cybernetic hand, clenching it into a fist, watching closely as the parts moved and flexed.

She moved then, sitting down on the bed next to him, legs curled beneath her.

“I won’t tell you not to follow me back, because I know it’d just piss you off, but I want you to consider what it would be like going back in time, unable to stop Judgement Day. I didn’t see it, but you did. I don’t want you to have to see it again.” His thumb dusted across her cheek then, a thousand of his synthetic neurons firing from his thumb and into his human brain -- soft, warm, and _his_.

“There’s not a chance in hell that I’m letting you go back into time without me,” Blair replied, taking a hold of his hand and threading her fingers through his. She straddled him on the bed, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Besides who’s supposed to keep you out of trouble?”

He chuckled dully. Shivering when her fingernails scraped along the back of his skull, running over the ridge that was left from when he tore out his chip. Unlike the other wounds he’d received over the years, it was the only one to leave a scar, a constant reminder of the choice he had made.

Blair leaned forward, kissing him on the corner of his mouth and then moving back a fraction before kissing his lips, moving herself closer to him. His good arm curled around her, shutting everything out for a moment and taking in the pleasure of her kiss. It ended when she ran her fingers down his arm and touched one of his burns. He jerked back suddenly, faint remnants of pain registering, but mostly his wounds had numbed, the machine part of himself taking away the pain. Instead it was the feeling of her touching metal instead of human skin that had stopped him.

She sat back on his knees, studying his face, a hand resting lightly on his cheek. It was then that he glanced away from her penetrating gaze. It was an argument that they had often, when he would let his self loathing show through, his doubts.

“ _How can you love me like this?_ ” ran through his head, but he didn’t say it aloud, the one time he had said it to her, she’d been upset.

“Look at me,” she spoke, guiding his head back to a position so that she could look into his sky blue eyes.

Clutching the bottom of her black shirt she lifted it quickly over her head, throwing it over her shoulder. Heavy silence fell between them as his eyes moved down, raking over her naked breasts, down her toned stomach and to the waistband of her grey panties. His eyes moved back up, following the same slow, sensual path.

Lifting his good hand, she raised it to her left breast and his hand cupped around it, her nipple against his palm. Marcus swallowed, warring with himself. In the three years that they had been together and the multitude of _injuries_ he had gotten in that time frame, they had never slept together when he was injured. The reminder of what he was under all the skin and blood when they were engaged in the most human act of all had always seemed wrong to him.

“Please…”

Unable to say no, not when she was looking at him like that, he acted, his hand beginning to gently knead her flesh, his thumb brushing over her nipple.

She inhaled sharply, head falling back when he moved his hand to her ribcage and lowered his head to take her hardened nipple into his mouth.

Voice breathy, she spoke. “I need you to hold me, please after today.”

He pulled back, watching her closely as she lifted his burned, skinless arm and pulled it to her side so that his hand was against the side of her breast, metal fingers a strange contrast to her skin. “Blair…” he began, beginning to shake his head, but she stopped him with a look.

“I thought you were dead,” she declared. “And now I need you.”

Blair shimmied herself closer, the crotch of her damp panties pressed against his cotton covered erection. He groaned, arms tightening around her as she ground down onto him.

“And I know you need me too.”

He lay back on the old, lumpy mattress and she shifted position, raising herself off to pull his sweats off of him, avoiding the burns on his thigh and hip.

She glanced down at him, taking stock of all the places his skin had been eaten away by the fire. Besides his arm, hip and thigh, there were smaller burns up his torso. Only the deepest showed the metal skeleton beneath, others were only angry, red marks on his skin.

Her fingers ran down his chest before taking both hands into hers and placing them on her hips. “I love you and want you no matter what. Just because I can see this,” her hand tightened on his skinless wrist, “doesn’t mean that it changes anything, it doesn’t. If _I_ was different, hurt in some way, would it change the way you feel about me?”

He didn’t have to think about the answer. “No, it wouldn’t.”

Blair smiled down at him. “You never answered.”

“What?”

“If you need me,” she teased, pulling down her panties.

Marcus didn’t have to think about that one either. “Always.”


	4. Chapter III

**Chapter III** ; _June 16, 2022_

 

John Connor hurried through the halls of their base, breaths coming out in quick, sharp pants. The resistance had struck the prison camp in Los Angeles after months, _years_ of planning; everyone had been looking forward to it, security there from T-600s had grown light over the years as Skynet had to divert some of their numbers to the north. They estimated that there were maybe 3,000 men, women, and children in that camp and the notion of freeing that many had filled him and his troops with hope. But suddenly it had all came crushing down on them.

The resistance had been doing weekly flyovers to keep track of Skynet activity, but somehow they had gotten their numbers wrong and they had underestimated the fight that Skynet would give them. Barnes was already estimating that there were 100 of his best trained men and women dead, with several squads missing. And Barnes had to be the one to inform him that Kyle Reese was in the hospital, unconscious, and covered in burns.

John had forced himself to keep his distance from Kyle, but he had over the years lost that fight a few times. Several times John had talked to him more than he should, getting to know the man that was his father. As the years since they found Kyle passed, John started to see more and more of himself in the younger man’s face. After so many years of wondering what his father would be like, look like, John wasn’t disappointed.

Kyle was occasionally brave to the point of stupidity, more than once John had seen and heard Marcus berating him for it, but that bravery has earned him a reputation as a hero. He could see now why his mother had fallen in love with him so completely… a love that had lasted for the rest of her life.

He burst into the hospital, run and supervised with an iron fist by Kate. The beds were full of patients, most from the recent battle but a few weren’t soldiers, a sick child, and an elderly woman in beds against the far wall. Kyle was being tended to by Kate and one of the nurses she had personally trained herself.

“Kate, how is he?” John asked his wife as he approached.

Kate sighed, face tired, an almost permanent crease in her forehead. “He’ll live, but it’s bad. Mostly second degree burns, but a few deeper ones on his back. What we have to worry about now is infection.” Kate swallowed hard, eyes misty. “He will be in severe pain when he wakes up. And John the scars… I have nothing here to minimize his burn scars, probably nothing like that exists anymore.”

John nodded, mind travelling back to one of his mother’s tapes. Sarah Connor had made many over the years, but the earliest ones, when she was still pregnant with him, were mostly about Kyle. They didn’t get to spend a lot of time together but everything Sarah could tell John about his father, she did. How he acted, what he told her about the future, how he made her feel, and what he looked like.

“ _I’d never seen scars like that before, like he’d been burned. But it wasn’t only on the outside, there were scars on the inside too, like he had seen too much and done too much for one man to carry around inside him._ ”

John nodded at his wife, pulling her into an embrace. “He’ll live, Kate, he’ll live.”

She pulled away, hurriedly wiping at her eyes so that no one else would see how emotional she had become.

“What about the rest of his squad?” John asked.

“Perry carried him out, his squad and one other were too close to an explosion. The only member of Perry’s squad to have checked in besides Kyle is Russel.”

“Wright’s missing?” John surmised.

Kate nodded. “Blair is worried, it’s not like Marcus to not make it out of a fight.”

John agreed with a slight shift of his head. “We’re sending out search teams tomorrow, hopefully we’ll find survivors.”

* * * *

When he came to, the first thing he noticed was overwhelming darkness that pressed down on him from all sides. There was a heavy weight on his back and he couldn’t move, could barely think. Blindly he reached out with his hand, feeling metal and cold, hard earth, and then something wet, cold, and sticky. Drying blood.

He opened his mouth and took a breath, tasting dusty, smoky stale air. He tried to speak, yell for help, but nothing came out but a pitiful croak. Slowly it all started to come back to him. He was Marcus Wright, ex-convict and cyborg turned soldier. He could remember a mission and half-dead with starvation prisoners. Then a whistle through the air before everything went black.

Thinking more clearly, he started to carefully take stock of his injuries realizing for the first time that his bottom half from the waist down was numb, like his legs weren’t even down there anymore. Groaning, he tried to move them, but got no reaction.

Marcus didn’t understand everything about his body, didn’t know how or why his human brain could work with his machine parts to make him walk and talk. Kate had given him a rundown on how she thought he worked, but even then it was only theories, after all, nothing else like him existed in the world. And so he could only surmise that the circuits from his brain to his legs had been damaged. Marcus had taken several hard lumps, banged himself up pretty good, but nothing like this.

He took a deep breath, trying not to panic. Who ever heard of a paralyzed cyborg anyway? Strangely he felt like laughing but swallowed the urge down, realizing that besides hysterical, he was racing towards delirious.

Suddenly the earth rumbled around him and then shook from within. He screamed as the beams, debris, and rock above him moved, shifting unexpectedly. Suddenly the feeling in his legs came back in a blaze of fire and pain, vaguely he could hear screaming from all around him, coming from him too in a crescendo. The pain from his newly rediscovered legs traveled up his back, following the path of his spine and reaching his neck. When it reached his brain he knew it, because, though he’s never been hit by lightening he imagined it felt something like that. And then like a switch being flipped, Marcus fell back into unconsciousness.

* * * *

John is there with Kate when Kyle begins to wake. They’re too low on painkiller to give him enough to really make him comfortable, but Kate’s administered just enough to take the edge off.

He’s sitting next to Kyle’s bed when his eyes open. They are dazed but they seem to focus on him, seem to understand where he is.

“Kyle, it’s John Connor, do you remember what happened?”

John watches as Kyle tries to talk, throat too dry for speech. Kate steps forward with a little cup of cool water, and tips it against Kyle’s cracked, dry lips. Some drips down his chin and neck but most manages to make its way down his throat. Kyle swallows and is finally able to speak.

“I—lost it,” Kyle croaks, eyes pained. “It burned.”

John’s brows furrow in confusion. “What burned Kyle?”

“She—burned.”

John’s eyebrows flew up in alarm. “Who Kyle, who burned?”

“Sarah… the picture. It fell.” Kyle’s eyes were wet with tears and John realized that it wasn’t because of the pain, which John realized must have been immense, but because of his mother’s picture.

It had occurred to John that Kyle would have had to leave behind the picture of his mother when he travelled back into the past, but he had never thought about it being destroyed. That picture was always destined for Kyle but John suddenly felt its loss too, another piece of Sarah Connor gone from the world.

“That’s alright, Kyle, don’t worry about it.”

Kyle shook his head, lips pressed together hard and turned his head away. John sat back in the chair, suddenly uncomfortable. Everyone had scars, in the world they lived in, they were inevitable, but to see Kyle like this, cut him deep.

After a minute or two, Kyle turned back to him, more composed. “The rest of the squad….”

“Perry and Russel have both checked in. Russel got hit with some shrapnel but he’s fine.”

Kyle’s sweaty face turned worried. “Marcus didn’t make it home?”

John shook his head. “I’m sending out search teams tomorrow. The Skynet rockets did a great deal of damage to what was left of the city, a lot of soldiers are probably trapped under the rubble.”

A far away look appeared on Kyle’s face as he remembered. “I… think I remember a rocket, everything’s kind of hazy. There was a whistle and the building behind us was hit, I was just in front of Marcus, he pushed me out of the way. Perry and Russel were just in front of me. Silverio was behind Marcus.”

John ran a hand over his face. Yet another reason why he owed his life to Marcus Wright, every time he saved Kyle, he saved John. When he asked Marcus to protect Kyle, he never knew the man would take it so seriously, or so to heart. He wanted to reassure Kyle that his friends would be fine, but he knew he couldn’t promise that.

They sat for awhile, and John was just considering moving onto the next bed when Kyle spoke again. His face had taken on a passive, almost controlled quality that made John wonder what he was _really_ thinking.

“The resistance always speaks of the mother of the resistance, but never of your father.”

It was a statement and a question all in one, and the words Kyle spoke, unknowingly about himself, made John’s breath catch in his throat. The picture had done its job; when John asked for a volunteer to go back and save his mother, Kyle would be the first to step forward.

For a minute, as he wondered how he was going to respond, he also thought about what Marcus had said a little less than a year before. The time when Kyle would have to go back was growing ever nearer, by John’s estimation only two years, but he hadn’t spoken to Marcus again about going back into time with Kyle. The idea of saving his father was as tempting as a pool of fresh water to a dying man in a desert. To have his father, for his mother to have a partner through the long, hard years. It remained unspoken between he and Marcus that nothing had changed, that when it came time for Marcus to go through time, he would. Hopefully, Marcus was still alive out there.

Finally he took a deep breath to reply. “He died, before the war.” The answer was short and John hoped it would appease him.

Kyle nodded and leaned his head back, looking up at the ceiling. John patted Kyle’s unburned shoulder and walked to the next bed, leaving Kyle alone with his pain and the thought of Sarah Connor.

* * * *

Blair Williams liked to think of herself as a woman who, if she wanted something, she went out and did it. This sort of attitude had gotten herself in and out a lot of scrapes throughout the years, but right in that moment she wanted Marcus back. And so, even if Connor had given direct orders that no one was going to leave base before sunrise, Blair wasn’t going to follow them. Marcus was out there… somewhere, and Blair couldn’t stand one more moment without knowing where he was or if he was even still alive.

As she walked up to the hanger, she found it empty; the soldiers and civilians were all in their beds, but she knew Connor always had someone posted at the radios. The moment she started up the bird they would know. She always felt more comfortable in a fighter, but if she wanted to pick up survivors, a chopper would make more sense. Picking her favorite, she climbed in, put the helmet on, and adjusted the radio.

When she started up the chopper, the radio instantly crackled to life.

“Unknown pilot, state name and purpose.”

“Jones, it’s Williams, I’m going out.”

She heard an exasperated snort on the other end. “Williams you know that Connor said no movement until sunrise.”

“Yeah, I remember him saying that, doesn’t mean I’m going to listen,” Blair stated as she flipped the controls over to full power and prepared for lift off.

“He’ll be pissed when he finds out,” Jones warned.

“Tell him I’ll be back; stay by the radio for updates, I may need the hospital team on full alert.”

The man on the end sighed. “You got it Williams, good luck out there, be careful.”

Blair felt a ghost of a smile on her lips. Jones had been a good pilot before he’d gotten shot in the hip by a T-600 a few years before, and Blair knew well enough that he would give anything to be up in a bird.

“You know it Jones. I’m going silent, Connor can frown at me when I get back.”

“Over and out.”

The radio went silent, and Blair turned it off on her end. She shifted in the chair, suddenly apprehensive, wishing that she had somebody, anybody with her, but she was alone, and that was the way it had to be. With a sigh and a prayer up to the heavens she took off, the rotor whipping up the wind around her. She turned immediately southward.

The night was quiet and still, her flight surprisingly easy; after Skynet’s defeat earlier that day, they would lay quiet for only a couple of days before attacking again with a vengeance.

It took her only forty-five minutes to reach the ruins of LA in the MI-8 chopper. She knew by that point that Connor would already know of her departure, and was likely planning her punishment. Demotion? Probably.

Before leaving base she had gotten a detailed description from Perry on where they had been when the rockets had started going off, and she knew whereabouts Marcus should be. Fires still burned through much of the city after the battle and there was enough light for her to look down and see the area and for a good place to land.

Perry had told her that when the rocket went off they had been near what used to be the corner of South Figueroa and West Fifth Streets. Much of the street was covered in rubble, but half a block down, the street was clearer and wide enough for her to land without hitting the side of the closest building with the rotor.

Blair unstrapped herself and took off her helmet, laying it on the seat next to her. From the back she retrieved the cutting torch, rope, working flashlight, and her shotgun, hoping though that she wouldn’t need it. She slung the gun and torch over her shoulder to free her hands and switched on the flashlight, scanning the surrounding area. There were a few destroyed T-800s that littered the ground but they lay silent. She checked each one, finding their chips had been already torn out by the soldiers that had passed through that area originally.

She walked a short ways until she reached the junction, though it was difficult to tell that it even was one with so much bomb debris. The rocket not only leveled the one building at the corner but also the one next to it, leaving behind a lot of steel and crumbly masonry. Blair knew from Perry that their squad had been closest to the second building, so logically she chose to start there first.

Setting down the rope, she clambered over the debris, flashlight held between her teeth. Now on the other side of the two buildings she turned to face what was left of the building. The debris pile was twice as tall as she was and covered the entire street.

“Fuck,” she muttered, digging her old canvas gloves out of her pocket and slipping them on. She had expected something like this, insurmountable odds, but facing it was sending doubtful thoughts through her brain.

Getting down on her hands and knees she began to lift what she could, shoving aside hunks of concrete and gnarled rebar with all her strength. As she worked she called Marcus’ name, pausing now and then to listen for a reply.

* * * *

Marcus had been awake for about half-an-hour, and lying as still as he could, not wanting the beam on his back to move further. The first time he had woken up after the feeling in his legs had come back he found that even the slightest movement would make the pain return and the feelings in his legs to flicker in and out.

When Marcus heard his name, he was certain that he was dreaming. It sounded far away but it was distinctly Blair’s voice. Relief ran through him.

“Blair!”

Silence followed for a moment and then he heard her voice again, growing closer. Dust drifted down from the ceiling of debris, only being held up by the beam across his back and several pieces of rebar. A few short seconds later a hole was made straight ahead of him and a light was shined down into his face.

“Marcus, thank God. Are you okay?” she asked.

“It depends on your definition of okay,” he quipped back, watching as the beam of light moved from his face to the rest of his body.

He heard Blair’s sharp inhale.

“Can you not move at all?”

“Some, the first time I woke up, I couldn’t feel my legs; now they’re kind of tingling,” he answered.

She nodded. “Just hold on, I have to move carefully.”

Marcus listened carefully as she moved the mess around and above him and began to realize that it was actually dark as pitch outside, and that there were no sounds besides her.

“Blair?”

Her face appeared again, sweaty and dirt covered. “What?” she replied.

“Did you come alone?”

She bit her lip, and Marcus knew then that she had. He wasn’t sure whether to be angry that she had taken such a risk, or glad that she had. Marcus decided on glad and whispered a heartfelt “thank you.” She gave him a small smile and began working again.

Before long she had uncovered most of him and she stood back to take stock of their situation. While Blair did that, Marcus was finally able to look around and realized that Blair had probably been there for a few hours at the most, and she hadn’t just found him. There were two others laid out side by side. The one on the right had a splinted leg that Blair had put together from two pieces of wood and strips of rags. Both were unconscious.

Blair walked out of his line of sight but was back a minute later, the cutting torch in hand.

She kneeled beside him. “I’ll never be able to move this thing. I’m going to cut off both ends.”

Marcus nodded and watched as she flipped down the old welding helmet over her face. She ignited the torch and adjusted the oxygen valve until she had the right flame, and began cutting, moving slowly and carefully down the width of the beam. Before long she had one end done and moved over to the side, beginning the same process again. When both sides had been cut, she put her hands around the rest of the beam still on his back and taking a deep breath, lifted up and away, arms straining from the weight.

“Marcus?” she asked after she had set the steel aside with a metallic clang, leaning down close to him.

He groaned and rolled over onto his back, hissing as the rest of the feeling raced back down into his legs. “I think that one of the circuits or whatever is in there was being compressed. Felt great,” he uttered sarcastically, carefully sitting upright.

Marcus rolled his neck, his metallic joints popping and grinding.

“Can you stand?” she asked, a crease buried deep in her forehead.

He nodded and stood, testing his legs carefully. “What happened to the rest?” he asked.

“Kyle, Perry, and Russel made it out. Russel had some shrapnel and Kyle has some nasty burns but both should make full recoveries. I haven’t found Silverio yet; those two—” she pointed down at the men on the ground, “have concussions and the one has a severely broken leg.”

Marcus looked closely at the soldiers on the ground. He knew of them, but didn’t know their names since they were from either a different squad or company. “When is Connor coming back with a search team?”

“In the morning, which is probably about a couple of hours away,” Blair answered, rubbing her dirty hands against her pant legs.

For the first time, Marcus really looked at Blair and realized that she was about to fall over with exhaustion. She was covered in scratches and had a large, blooming bruise across her cheek bone. He stepped close and ran his fingers gently across the darkened skin. “What happened?”

Blair sighed. “When I pulled the first one out, he hadn’t passed out yet. He was delirious and scared.”

At the look on his face she reached up and touched his cheek. “It’s no big deal, he didn’t know what he was doing.”

He felt like arguing, because the idea of anybody laying a hand on her made him nearly blind with rage, but he was too mentally exhausted to do anything more than nod his head.

They looked back over what was left of the pile of rubble and both realized at the same moment that they couldn’t go any further. Connor would be there soon and Marcus was certain that Blair couldn’t possibly lift one more block without falling over (not that she would want to hear that). Touching her shoulder, Marcus turned her gently to face him. “Come on babe, I think it’s time to head home.”

She nodded tiredly, hair heavy with dust and sweat.

Bending down carefully, thinking about the ghostly sort of pain his legs, Marcus lifted the two unconscious soldiers over his shoulders and straightened. “Where are we parked?” he asked.

“On the other side of these buildings,” Blair answered, gesturing down the street.

They cut through the alleyway and Marcus found the chopper easily enough. He laid the two men in the back and climbed up after them, turning to help Blair up. “Can you fly?” he inquired gently.

She gave him a look and he bit back a smile. “Alright, never mind I asked; of course you can fly.”

“Damn right I can fly,” she stated, climbing into the cock pit and strapping herself back in. “The last time I let you fly, you nearly crashed.”

“That was a freak occurrence and you know it,” he quipped back, following her and climbing into the passenger side.

She was grinning by this point, teeth seeming very white against the dirtiness of her face. Even though she had lost friends that day, she was beyond thankful that he was alive. “Aha, keep telling yourself that Marcus.” She glanced behind her shoulder. “Are they secure?”

He grunted. “The one is.”

“Marcus,” she began sternly.

“Yeah, yeah, they both are, keep your underwear on.”

Blair smirked, starting up the chopper as the sky just began to lighten in the east. “Wright, I think I’m beginning to like this obsession with my panties.”

“Don’t I know it Babe, believe me.”


	5. Chapter IV

**Chapter IV** _; March 2, 2024_

 _There was nothing in sight but memories left abandoned  
There was nowhere to hide, the ashes fell like snow  
And the ground caved in between where we were standing  
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve_

John looked over the crowd of soldiers that had gathered, studying their faces. Though many had come to stand before him today, he knew each and everyone of them; he knew their strengths and weaknesses, both off and on the battlefield. But he knew one of them more than all the others, Kyle Reese was standing close to the front and to the right, face uplifted towards John.

He took in a deep breath, glancing at Kate to his left, his wife’s belly swollen with their second child. Marcus was in the crowd too, standing resolute and silent next to Blair. Only Kate, Marcus, Blair, and Barnes knew what John was going to ask the congregated troops; John had known, almost since birth, that this day would come but it didn’t make it any easier. He was standing up on a little dais, a few feet off the ground, and he let his gaze sweep across the other soldiers, not letting his eyes settle on Kyle for too long. All his life he had wondered what Kyle Reese would be like, and now he knew, and now he would have to send Kyle away.

For one crazy second he wondered what sending someone else back would do to their already fucked up timeline. He could just randomly pick from the crowd, and one of his men would be happy to be the savior of Sarah Connor, known by all as _the prophet_. But he was Kyle Reese’s son, not another man’s child. What would change about himself if he did do that? He didn’t understand how genetics versus learned behavior worked, he supposed he could ask Kate, she would have a theory for him, but as a child he liked to think that he was like his father. His mother had made a connection with Kyle… John wasn’t sure how much stock he put in fate, but he knew instinctively that it had to be Kyle, it always would.

He stepped forward, hands clasped behind his back, and spoke. “I have served with many of you since this war began, and I consider you all my brothers and sisters. With every win, we become stronger and Skynet grows weaker.”

The crowd exploded in cheers and wild applause and John had to wait a minute to let it die down.

“But Skynet is nothing if not adaptable.” John’s words rang out through the room, the large group finally growing completely quiet. “We have discovered a plan within Skynet’s database, a plan that if we allow Skynet to follow it through to success, will bring the resistance to its knees,” he paused to take a breath. “Skynet has discovered a technology to send human and machine through time.”

Horrified silence followed. “The machines have concocted a plan to send a Terminator back through time to kill my mother before my birth.”

Loud whispers broke out. Men’s and women’s faces grew pale while the eyes of the children in attendance grew wide and fearful. As the noise level increased, Barnes raised his hands, calling for silence.

“I am before you today, to ask for one volunteer to send back into time to save Sarah Connor. Do not take this task lightly, once through time, there is no way to return home,” John spoke, finally finished. He exhaled and stepped back, watching and waiting.

He noticed many curious faces, several that looked more than willing to step forward and offer their services, but there was already someone stepping forward, somebody with their arm stretched out in the air. Kyle parted the crowd easily as he walked swiftly towards the front. John allowed himself to finally study him at the moment as Kyle walked forward; over the few years that John had known him, his father’s face had changed. No longer open and earnest with youth, but close and aged, like a man with too many nightmares and too little sleep.

Kyle came to stand before all the others, shoulders straight as he stood at attention. “I’ll do it.” His voice was even and sure, the voice of a man who didn’t have any doubts or questions.

“Are you sure Sergeant Reese?”

“Yes, I am.”

John nodded once, throat suddenly tight. He looked to the right and saw Marcus looking at him. They had five days to prepare Kyle for what he had to do, and those same five days to ready Marcus and Blair, without Kyle finding out. John stepped off the raised platform and the crowd dispersed except for Kyle, Marcus, and Blair. Marcus clapped Kyle on the shoulder in a brotherly fashion and squeezed.

At 22, Kyle was now taller than Marcus and because Marcus had not aged in the six years since he had woken, they looked roughly the same age. Blair was now 35 and a few small ways was starting to show her age. Her dark hair was peppered with a few strands of silvery gray, and her face was just beginning to show more lines around her eyes. But she was still the best pilot in the resistance. Over the years John had seen many pilots not come back, and most rarely made it as long as Blair had, testament to her skill in a cockpit and her will to survive.

Kyle approached John. “I won’t let you down sir,” he spoke reverently.

“I know you won’t,” he replied.

A heavy silence fell between them, so many things being left unsaid on John’s part.

“When do I leave?” Kyle asked, hands stuffed somewhat nervously into his jacket pockets.

“We will discuss all of the details after you’ve had some down time. How long was your patrol shift?”

Kyle shrugged, brows furrowed. “Twelve hours the same as everyone else.”

John nodded. “Meet me in my office at 08:00 hours tomorrow morning, I want you well rested.”

Kyle agreed with a quiet murmur and walked off. He paused once and glanced back at the small group behind him; he didn’t say anything, the look on his face didn’t change, but the crease in his eyebrows remained the same. Kyle was smart enough to know something else was going on, something they couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him. But he was a soldier and he had a mission, he wasn’t going to start asking questions. He continued on and turned the corner a few seconds later, leaving the others alone.

There was complete silence for a moment before Marcus turned to John. “You ready for this Connor?” he asked, gesturing to where Kyle had just disappeared.

“I was born expecting this, but I’ll never be ready for it.” Entering a quiet, deep sort of reflection that John Connor usually never had, he took Kate’s hand in his. “What about you Marcus, Blair?”

Strangely in the years that they had all fought together a friendship had formed. A lot of things had changed and come to pass since Marcus had been strung up by an axle and labeled their enemy. And Marcus knew that John was really asking if they were still willing to go with Kyle, and that their leader wouldn’t judge if they said no.

Mirroring John and Kate, Blair slipped her hand into Marcus’. “Just tell us what we need to do John, and we’ll do it.”

John gazed off into space before answering, his mind playing back over Sarah’s tapes, and everything else she had ever told him. “Playing around with time is tricky, and dangerous. We can’t let Kyle know, not before he leaves and he can’t see you until he needs you.”

“How do we know when the time comes?” Marcus asked.

“My mother gave me a timeline, told me everything. When and where she first saw Kyle, the first time she saw the Terminator, absolutely everything. The future’s changed but the past hasn’t, you will be going back to the same time and place, so I should be able to give a play by play of what will happen and where you should be.”

“Sounds like we should write this all down then huh?”

John shook his head. “Won’t do any good, nothing inorganic can go through.”

Marcus snorted. “That doesn’t bode to well for me though does it?”

“You’re covered with living human tissue, you should make it through just fine. You’ll have to memorize it all. Do you want to get started now, or later?”

“I think now would be good,” Blair replied for him, looking somewhat nervous for the first time.

John smiled wanly. “That’s what I thought you would say.”

* * * *

March 7, 2024

No matter how hard Kyle closed his eyes and tried to sleep, he just couldn’t. Too many things were whirling through his mind and the nightmare he had woken up from two hours before hadn’t been helpful either. The nightmares had become as reliable and on time as Skynet’s defense system. Every night just after three in the morning he would wake up with a cold sweat, shaking. He knew others suffered from the same thing often, hell he supposed even John Connor couldn’t escape from the death and destruction visiting him in his dreams. But no matter how many felt what he felt, it didn’t stop him from feeling weak, weak and useless.

Giving up, he sat up in bed and ran a hand down his tired face. So as not to disturb the others that were sleeping around him, he quietly stood from his bowing old cot and tip toed out of the room. Like most of the other soldiers he slept in his clothes, ready at any moment to go into battle with the machines, so he didn’t have to worry about his state of dress as he walked through their underground base. Originally it had been a large basement system for a building that no longer stood, but in the three years that the resistance had called this place home base, more tunnels and rooms had been dug out.

Kyle wished he could be sleeping, knew that he probably should; today he would be going back into time, and most would urge sleep so that he would be as well rested as possible. He supposed, thinking back, that he could have gone back to his cot, but sometimes, his bed would begin to feel like a prison.

He walked through the halls slowly, passing by a few fellow soldiers and saying hello to them. As he strolled he thought hard about everything, about what he had signed up to do. If Kyle was honest with himself, saving _the_ Sarah Connor was not the only reason he had volunteered…. Some nights he would dream about her, remembering the pretty, sad face that he only knew from the picture that John had given him. Even months after it had burned in the fire, he would find himself sticking his hand in his pocket to retrieve it, expecting it to be there. But of course, it never was. He yearned to really see her face, especially after so many months of not seeing it in any capacity.

Nearing the entrance, he nodded hello to the guards on duty. “I’m going up top boys, I’ll be back in a few.”

“Be careful Sergeant, there’s been no activity but you never know….”

Kyle clapped the man on the soldier. “No worries Springmeyer.”

The guards parted and let him pass, and Kyle continued on. There were several ways to get in and out of the base, but the simplest way was to climb the ladder up to the surface.

He grabbed hold of the metal ladder and climbed up one rung at a time, boots occasionally squeaking against the slick metal surface. Reaching the top, Kyle grabbed hold of the handle of the trap door and pushed up, his head popping into the old-mostly-destroyed shack that hid the entrance. He glanced around before grasping the edges and pulling himself up and out. He slung the strap of his gun over his shoulder and closed the trapdoor behind him, camouflaging it as it had been before he’d opened it.

Stepping out into the early morning air he inhaled deeply and exhaled. Connor had picked a strangely beautiful spot for their base. The area was secluded and more than 200 miles in any direction from a zone that Skynet had nuked, so some green still existed there. The horizon was tinged with pink and red, the sun just beginning to come up, illuminating the area in an eerie, dim light. Ground fog twined around the trees and seemed to creep down the hill and toward him.

Chilled, Kyle pulled his jacket tighter around him and sat on cold, wet ground up against the shack. If asked, Kyle wasn’t absolutely certain if he could explain why he was outside, he just knew that for a minute he wanted to pretend that the world was normal. And he wanted to clear his head. He laid the rifle across his knees and leaned his head back against the rough wooden exterior wall, breathing in the cold, damp air. His head did mostly clear, calmed for a time by the peacefulness of early morning, but one dooming thought did remain. It had always hovered in the back of his mind, dark and heavy like a black cloud… how could one human man stop a terminator and live to tell the tale?

Shivering, he pulled his hands into his jacket and opened his eyes, knowing that such a lapse in concentration could easily get you dead. But the clearing was still empty except for him, no baddies lurking around the corners. Realizing that he should head back in before the guards got antsy and went looking for him, he pushed himself up from the ground.

Time to go in and face his fate… he had five hours before he was set to leave.

* * * *

He was naked, feeling exposed and cold as he stepped into the time displacement equipment. The floor was rough concrete and he curled his toes against it, standing there and waiting for John’s _go_. His eyes sought out the older man beyond the glass partition that separated him from the others that were working on getting the equipment up and ready.

Feeling eyes on him, John looked up. “Alright Reese?”

Kyle nodded, eyes moving around the room, taking in everything, wanting to forget nothing. He closed his eyes then, breathing in deeply and licking his lips afterward. He wouldn’t admit that he was scared, because he was a soldier, one of their best and he couldn’t show the others his fear. With his eyes closed, the faces of those that he considered most important to him flashed before his eyes. Star, the girl who was like his sister, Marcus, his best friend, John, the man that he looked up to most, and Sarah, the woman he couldn’t help but think about.

“Kyle, do you remember everything I told you?”

He opened his eyes. “Yes.”

“The pain should pass quickly after you arrive. The most important thing to do when you first get there is to find clothes.”

John had said all of this already, but Kyle understood that if it appeased his commander’s mind, it would be repeated

“Good luck Kyle,” John spoke, nodding slowly.

“Thank you sir.”

John exhaled and turned to the technician by his side. “We are a go in thirty seconds, start the count down.”

The machine above and around Kyle whirred to life and he kneeled as he had been told to do, one knee on the floor and the other flexed up with his fingertips pressing hard against the floor. Electricity crackled through the air and he shivered as it seemed to dance across his back. _Jesus… this was crazy._ Suddenly it did seem crazy, bat-shit insane, but nothing would change his mind, he had made a promise not only to John but in his mind, a promise to Sarah too. In the background he could hear their countdown, but it seemed distant and hollow. _14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8…._ The energy around him began to build but he kept his eyes closed, able to see the bolts of electricity behind his eyelids. The heat built too and he hissed in pain as his body seemed to burn from the outside in.

 _5, 4, 3…._ He didn’t know why, but in that moment he opened his eyes and looked up, looking directly into the face of Marcus. He could only have a moment to be confused, because Marcus hadn’t been there before, wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Pain slashed into his body and there was screaming in his ears and he realized dimly that it was himself screaming. It only lasted a second though because suddenly the floor was gone and he was being hurled through space and time. The only sound besides the whooshing in his ears were the screams he left behind.


	6. Chapter V

**Chapter V** _; May 13, 1984_

 _He stood with her in the center of the machine, waiting. It seemed that upon inflection, that he was always waiting for the next stroke of destiny to overtake him. Waiting to die, waiting to live, waiting to be trusted by his fellow soldiers. Kyle had already gone through time and his friend’s scream continued to ring an hour later in Marcus’ ears. He held tighter to Blair, wishing that he could convince her not to go, but she would never listen, he knew her too well._

 _There was a signal from John but Marcus only had eyes for the woman before him as the time machine came to life once more. Blair curled herself into him as the heat built and the pain grew, he held her tightly as her fingernails dug into his naked back._

 _He heard her whimper his name as time was wretched apart and they were thrown headfirst into their destiny._

* * * *

Marcus and Blair landed hard a few feet apart, Blair on the cold pavement and Marcus half-in half-out of a dumpster. The sound of his heavy body smashing into the metal container was overly loud in the deserted alleyway and made Blair jump as she panted for air. He picked himself up and went over to her, helping her move out of the puddle of light from the nearby street lamp. They huddled down beside the now severely dented dumpster, seeking privacy against any prying eyes. All they needed was a bunch of cops on their tail.

“Are you alright?” he whispered as he watched her shiver and sweat.

Blair swallowed hard but eventually nodded. “I feel like I’m going to be sick.”

He pushed her head down between her knees and waited until she caught her breath. When she had it under control she lifted her head. “I’m good to go.”

Marcus nodded and carefully stood, peeking around the side of the dumpster for anyone that might be around; when he didn’t see anyone, he took her hand. They sprinted deeper into the alley, flattening themselves against the building on the right when a car passed by the mouth of the alley.

Connor had given them strict instructions and they knew that getting clothes would come first. Travelling through time naked turned out to be a gigantic pain in the ass.

They stopped at a window and Marcus peaked in through the bars, trying to differentiate apartments from little shops. This one looked into a little room full of bins and various boxes full of merchandise.

“I think this is going to be our best chance,” he whispered, grasping the bars and pulling them off with a screech of tearing metal.

He set the tangled bars on the ground by his feet and quickly broke the window. Looking side to side for anyone, Blair lifted herself inside, landing on the other side with a faint thump. Marcus quickly followed.

They were clearly in the back of a small thrift or goodwill store. There were a lot of used goods that were being inventoried and priced. Thankfully there were also several boxes of clothes. They quickly went through them, Marcus eventually tugging on a grey t-shirt, jacket, and a pair of worn jeans. Blair found a similar outfit and looked around at their surroundings.

“Should we look round, see if there’s anything else we might need?” she asked. “We need shoes and I don’t see any back here.”

Marcus nodded and carefully stepped out of the back room to the front of the store. It was dark but Marcus was able to make out the rack of shoes to his right. He picked out a pair of sneakers for himself and Blair, then looked around the store for anything they could use. Spotting the cash register several feet off, Marcus grinned and stepped over to it. He reached underneath the cash drawer and was pleased when he felt the cold metal of the shotgun strapped to the underside. Marcus had robbed enough convenience stores to know where the shop owners liked to keep their weapons. He pulled off the Velcro straps holding it in place and lifted the gun up. Looking over it closely, he tested its weight and then the sight, finding the gun in good condition. He checked for shells and found it fully loaded.

“Nice,” he murmured. Rifling through the drawers he located two boxes of shells which he stuck in his jacket pockets.

He heard movement behind him and turned, finding Blair standing in the doorway holding a fully automatic handgun and a smirk. Marcus tipped up one eyebrow. “Where’d you find that?” he asked.

“In the bank of drawers in the back.” She gestured to the shotgun in his hand. “Yours?”

“Strapped under the register. From the look of things I’d say this guy is fully stocked.” Turning, he picked up a belt and quickly fashioned a shoulder strap for his newfound weapon, hiding it easily under his long jacket.

Blair nodded. “I wonder if there might be anymore?” she said as she tugged on sneakers.

Marcus opened his mouth to answer but the sudden light illuminating the shop’s interior made him pause. His first thought was cops but it was a car pulling up out in the front, the headlights seemingly on bright. It stopped but didn’t turn off, instead the engine revved. From their position in the store he didn’t think they could be seen from the street but a shiver of apprehension went up and down his spine anyways. He looked down at the shotgun and then at the handgun in Blair’s hand. The shotgun wasn’t out of place but once he stopped to consider it the handgun was too fancy and expensive to be owned by just any store clerk.

“What in the…” Blair began but was cut off by Marcus grabbing her arm.

“Time to get out of here.”

They hurried out the back and Blair had just hoisted herself back out the window when the firing started. It cut through the glass in the front and straight through the thin walls that separated the store front from the back. One bullet winged him in the back and he grunted from the impact. He heard Blair scream his name from outside and quickly followed her out. He landed somewhat haphazardly with the back of his head hitting the brick ledge of the window, but he shook it off. Grabbing Blair’s hand they ran further down the alley and turned down the first side street they came too, their feet pounding hard against the pavement.

They stopped a few minutes later, both of them leaning against the back wall of an apartment building, Blair gasping for breath from their hard run. Marcus touched her chin and lifted her head. “You okay?”

She nodded and whispered yes. Once she had her breathing under control, she spoke. “What do you think that was all about? Did they see us or….”

“No, I think we broke into the wrong shop at the wrong time. Whoever owned the store probably pissed the wrong people off,” Marcus explained.

Blair snorted. “Yeah, just our luck.” She sighed rolling her neck to release some of the tension. “Now what?”

“Find a car to stay in for the rest of the night and hunker down until morning. The Terminator doesn’t know where Connor’s mother lives yet and according to John’s timeline, he doesn’t know where Kyle was the first night.”

Walking side by side, they left the alleys and walked out onto the street. The area that they were in appeared mostly deserted for which Marcus was thankful. The streets were lined with cars and he had his pick of which one to take. _Non-descript, don’t draw attention to yourself._

“This one.”

The car was a 1973 Pontiac that had seen better days, but the dark color seemed to blend in with the rest of the cars on the street, precisely what they were looking for. Blair stood calmly on the passenger side, trying not to draw attention to herself as Marcus pulled a coat hanger from his pocket.

“When did you manage to get that?” she asked him.

“Managed to swipe it when we left, I knew that we would need it.”

He quickly bent it into the shape he wanted and inserted the newly created lock jimmy between the door and the rest of the car. He had to prod around with it for a minute before he heard a soft click and knew that he had managed to get the car unlocked. He slid into the car quickly and reached over to unlock the passenger side door. As Blair got in and closed her door, he quickly opened the panel beneath the steering column and carefully stripped the wires with his fingernails and then twisted the naked wires together. The car started immediately with a low, satisfying rumble.

As Marcus pulled away from the curb, his eyes drifted over to his girlfriend. “Anything useful in the glovebox?” he asked, quickly turning onto I10 and heading away from the more heavily populated areas.

Blair leaned forward and popped open the compartment, rifling through the papers and junk inside. She pulled out several papers, one a large folded map and the other the car’s registration.

“Hmm,” she murmured, looking at the registration.

“What?”

“Looks like Javier Valdez is going to have a hard time getting to work in the morning,” she said, waving the piece of paper in the air.

“When the apocalypse comes he can thank us for it then. What is the map of?” he questioned, carefully and skillfully passing a slower car in front of them.

Blair unfolded it on her lap and opened it wide. “The greater LA area,” replied Blair, wiping the back of her hand against her sweaty forehead, her hand beginning to shake.

“Babe, you okay?”

She shook her head and inhaled deeply. “Just crashing from the adrenaline.”

Marcus nodded in understanding. “Lean your chair back and get some shuteye.”

She did and there was silence in the car for a moment before Blair spoke again. Her head was leaned back and her eyes were shut, Marcus had begun wondering if she wasn’t already asleep.

“Marcus?”

“What?”

“Where do you think Kyle is right now?”

Marcus mind wandered for a minute, wondering that himself. That was one of the things that Connor didn’t know before they embarked on their little adventure, where Kyle had spent his first night in the past. “I don’t know, hopefully keeping out of trouble.”

Blair opened her eyes for a second and looked out her window, the city flying by. “I had forgotten that the world ever looked like this; it’s alien and foreign.”

Finally her eyes fluttered shut and she fell asleep, the street lights illuminating her face in short, regular intervals. Marcus sighed and shifted in his seat, hands tightening around the steering wheel for a second, thinking about tomorrow and what it would hold.

Marcus eventually pulled off of I10 and drove up into the Santa Monica Mountains, finding a place that he found that would somewhat hide the car and parked. Blair was still sleeping, her head having lulled to the side. Marcus considered trying to sleep himself but ultimately decided that even if he wanted to, he didn’t think that he could get his brain to shut itself off.

He set the shotgun across his lap and fiddled with the radio a little, keeping it on low. It had been a long time since he had heard music and realized as he settled on a station, that he had missed it.

Marcus couldn’t help but laugh a little when a new song started, _now_ that brought back memories.

 _Living easy, living free/Season ticket on a one-way ride/Asking nothing, leave me be  
/Taking everything in my stride/Don't need reason, don't need rhyme/Ain't nothing I would rather do/ Going down, party time/ My friends are gonna be there too/ I'm on the highway to hell_

Knowing that it would be a long time before they would have to leave, Marcus settled deeper into his chair, one hand on the gun and both eyes scanning their surroundings. They may have been in the 80s but that didn’t quell Marcus’ compulsion (he refused to call it fear) of what monsters might be out there.

* * * * 

Blair woke four hours later with a start, calming when she felt her hand being held by Marcus’. She blinked for a minute, looking around at their surroundings before she realized where and _when_ they were.

“Shit, what time is it?” she asked, stretching and sitting upright.

“‘Bout seven; you hungry?”

She nodded. “Yeah, thirsty too.”

Marcus started the car and started back towards downtown. “We’re going to have to ditch the car, we don’t want to deal with the cops.”

They left the car in a back alley off of Beverly Boulevard and walked several blocks down to a McDonalds, ordering breakfast with the money they found in the car’s center console. Marcus rarely ate anymore but he chose an Egg McMuffin for the hell of it, wanting to remember what it tasted like. Mostly, he watched Blair wolf down two of the same breakfast sandwiches with enthusiasm usually not even seen in a five star restaurant. He chuckled when she moaned in joy when she started on the second one.

“I forgot how good these were,” she explained, grinning through a mouth of food, her cheeks puffing out like a chipmunk’s.

Marcus laughed, hand slapping the table.

They left as soon as they were done, walking down the sidewalk hand in hand, passing by numerous shop fronts. They eventually reached a little park and sat down together on a bench. The weather was nice enough, not too hot, not too cool and they both found themselves relaxing. Blair leaned against Marcus’ shoulder, watching as the children around them played and laughed.

“Funny to think that before long this will all be gone,” she whispered, eyes following a little boy about the age of ten playing fetch with his yellow lab. The boy’s closely cropped blond hair and the shape of his grinning face reminded her of Marcus. She found it funny (and bizarre) that at that very moment, a nine-year-old Marcus was in Texas, and that some day he would grow up to be the man sitting next to her.

The two stayed in that park for several hours, eventually making plans and talking about what would happen that night. Sarah Connor would arrive at the nightclub TechNior at approximately 9:05, and they had to be ready for anything. Connor had given them strict orders not to interfere unless they absolutely had to, but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to be packing some serious heat – just in case.

* * * *

Night fell cool and dark, the city coming to life with clubbers as the downtown nightlife exploded. It was Friday night, but the sidewalks were less crowded in this part of town then in others. Kyle, trying to appear as nonchalant as possible, leaned against a shop’s security gate, though he didn’t think he was really succeeding. After several offputting looks from passers by he had moved several times, trying to blend in with the crowd, while at the same time not going far from his post.

He had followed Sarah all day, first from her apartment in the morning and then to her job, and back to the apartment again. Now, he was standing outside a pizzeria waiting for Sarah to come out. She had gone out on the town on her own, leaving behind her roommate and the roommate’s boyfriend and it had been easy to follow her.

The door of the pizzeria opened and he turned his head, watching as she walked out, her hands curled into tight, worried little fists. He knew instantly that she had come out of café in a completely different frame of mind then when she had gone in. Something had spooked her.

As she passed by him she turned her head and looked at him for the first time and he felt his breath hitch in his chest. She continued on by and he went after her, more closely now than earlier. She glanced back at him a minute later and Kyle knew that she was aware of him now, too aware. She slipped into a club on the right but he didn’t follow her in, not yet. He walked on at the same leisurely pace, feeling her eyes on him as he walked by the tinted windows. It was good to have her on guard but he couldn’t have her actively _running_ away from him.

Once he was certain that she couldn’t see him anymore, he doubled back and slipped into the club after her. He paid the woman at the front, using the money he’d gathered from the car he had stolen and settled down at a table in sight of Sarah. She was at the payphone, looking more and more frustrated as time went on.

When the Terminator walked into the club fifteen minutes later, Kyle had no problems spotting him. It was a hard assed looking fucker, big and expressionless. In that moment Kyle didn’t let himself feel the fear that longed to course through his veins, he could do this, he _would_ do this. The Terminator scanned the room, searching for its target amongst the dancing, gyrating crowd.

Kyle realized too late that he was at a disadvantage, there was a crowd of people between him and Sarah. He stood and inched around and closer as the Terminator turned and approached the table where Sarah was sitting. Holding a tight, worried breath in his lungs, Kyle pulled out the shotgun, shells already chambered. His heart sped and stuttered as the Terminator pulled a gun, its red laser sight trained on Sarah’s forehead. She was looking at her would-be killer now and not at Kyle as he shoved people out of the way.

When the way was clear he raised the gun and fired off five shots in quick succession, the kick back jarring his shoulder, but it was a good, welcome pain. Thank whatever God still remained to watch the earth, he had shot first. The machine stumbled back and eventually fell, the heavy, dull thud muffled by the screams of the clubbers.

The ensuing gun battle passed like a blur in his mind as he acted purely on the instinct honed after years of war. Trying to keep one eye on the Terminator and the other on Sarah proved to be nearly impossible and he lost sight of her for a few seconds. Shots range out from the machine’s semi-automatic and the sounds of the shots not directed at him, finally broke the dam on his emotions.

He bolted from his position behind the bar and was finally able to catch sight of Sarah on the ground, wiggling her way out from under a dying or dead dancer. Kyle knew this was it. What was it that Connor had always said? _For a hand weapon to have the most impact against the machines, close combat should be taken if possible._

Kyle inhaled and bolted again, jumping out into the open behind the Terminator. He didn’t waste any time in shooting, firing until his enemy had been pushed out of the club and into the street. He knew this distance would only buy him a few crucial seconds but hopefully it would be just enough to get her out of the club and back to his car.

He bent and took her arm, forcing her to look at him. “Come with me if you want to live,” he bit out.

She hesitated for a moment, stunned motionless as the machine sat up, its body riddled with bullet holes.

“Come on!” he hauled her up and pushed her in front of him as they took off running.

They crashed out of the club’s backdoor into the dark, dank back alley. He shoved her to the right and they ran, legs pumping hard beneath them. Kyle’s breath came in sharp pants as he worked at chambering more rounds, the Terminator’s heavy footed steps echoing behind them. The advice and words of John Connor throughout the years seemed to be on repeat in his mind, a manual for survival. _Don’t try to outrun the T-800, it will be faster than you; it will not tire or grow winded like every soldier will._

Thankfully reaching the car, Kyle tugged Sarah to a halt.

 _Fire and explosion can potentially confuse the T-800 for a second or two, its tracking ability will momentarily be hindered._

He aimed at the gas tank of the car in front of them and shot, the resulting explosion making heat bloom across his face. Flames licked at the sky and the fire spread from wall to wall as black smoke started to fill the alley.

Once in the car he turned the key already in the ignition and put the car into a speedy reverse. It was only Sarah’s short but terrified scream that let him know that the fire didn’t confuse the Terminator for long. The front of the car dipped and careened suddenly and the noise that the machine made when he threw himself onto the car, screeched through Kyle’s ears.

“Fuck!” was the only thing he could think and say when the machine punched through the windshield, sending vein like lines through the cracked glass.

The Terminator caught hold of Sarah’s shirt and pulled, her screams vibrating through the car’s interior. She braced herself against the dashboard and Kyle reached out a hand to hold her in the car. With one hand on the wheel, Kyle whipped the car out of the alley, turning the wheel hard to the right, tires screeching on the road. Unable to stop the force of inertia against its body, the Terminator flew clear from the car, smashing into the parked police car on the side of the road.

Not sparing a glance back, Kyle hit the gas and sped off.

 _If a Terminator is hunting you it won’t stop for anything, except its own destruction._

Swallowing hard, Kyle turned his head quickly to glance at Sarah. Her head was turned to the side, and he couldn’t see her face.

“Are you injured?” he asked, maneuvering around the light traffic on the road. “Have you been shot?” Kyle didn’t think she had been shot, but she looked almost unconscious with her face hidden from him like that.

It was then that she finally panicked. Her arms flailed as she tried to get away from him and open the door; of course at those speeds, jumping from the car would more likely than not kill her, leaving them all fucked.

“No, stop!” he ordered, trying to keep one eye on road and another on her.

Having no other choice, he reached around to the back of her skull and took a fist full of her light brown, almost blonde hair into his hand. He didn’t pull hard, just enough so that she would focus and look at him.

“Do exactly what I say, don’t move unless I say, don’t make a sound unless I say. Do you understand? Do you understand!”

“Yes! Please don’t hurt me,” she pleaded, voice high with hysterics.

Needing to take full control of the car (unless he wanted to end their night wrapped around a light poll), he let go of her hair, and put both hands back on the wheel. She wasn’t any more calm, but more scared of him now, to the point where she wasn’t going to move anywhere. He swerved around a slower moving car at an intersection and drove onto the sidewalk, staying there until the next intersection where he entered the road again.

“I’m here to help you; I’m Reese, Sergeant Tech-Com, VN 38416, I’ve been assigned to protect you, you’ve been targeted for termination,” he rattled off, trying to reassure her with a title and his station.

It didn’t particularly seem to work but he could focus on getting her to trust him later, for right now he had to outrun the Terminator and get them someplace safe. It was quiet for a tense minute or two, before she spoke.

“This is a mistake, I didn’t do anything,” she whispered, confused and frightened.

“No, but you will; it’s very important that you live,” he answered.

She shook her head. “This isn’t true, how could that man just get up after you—“

“It’s not a man, it’s a machine, a Terminator, Ciberdyne Systems Model 101.”

Her look was incredulous and horrified but Kyle could see the blooming truth of it in her eyes. Indeed, no human man could survive those wounds and she at least could see that.   
As he hurdled down the Los Angeles freeways, he was reminded of something that John had told him a day before he left.

 _Don’t give up hope Kyle, you’re traveling to a world unknown to you, and my mother will be a part of this world. She won’t know about war or the machines, in fact she won’t even know about me, not yet. It will be your job Kyle, to tell her._

He fully intended to do his job properly.


	7. Chapter VI

**Chapter VI** _; May 14, 1984_

 _In every loss, in every lie, in every truth that you'd deny  
And each regret and each goodbye was a mistake too great to hide  
And your voice was all I heard that I get what I deserve_

It seemed wrong to look at her like this when she was asleep, to touch her hair, but it seemed _right_ and filled him with a feeling that he had never felt before. She was prettier in person, lovely like the sweetest victory. But it wasn’t just the way she looked, or how soft her hair felt between his fingers, he was in awe of her. Putting himself in her shoes, she was surprisingly good under pressure, given how he had turned her world upside down. Isn’t that what they had always said about John Connor – good under pressure? Guess that’s where he’d gotten it from.

She jolted awake and he moved his hands away from her hair, feeling like a child who had been caught stealing. Sarah sat up, shivering a little from the morning’s coolness.

“I was dreaming about dogs,” she uttered, and he settled his right arm around her shoulders.

“We use them to spot Terminator’s, they can see and smell what we can’t,” he replied, wondering for a moment why he had mentioned it, dreaming about dogs was as good as any dream. He had woken her from two nightmares during the night.

“Your world sounds pretty terrifying,” said Sarah and she shivered again in his arms.

He opened his mouth to agree but closed it; she was already a part of his world, she would find out for herself soon enough.

They didn’t talk as they stood and walked out from the storm drain. The silence though wasn’t heavy or oppressive, but felt natural and comforting; they were the only two people on this earth who knew about Judgment Day, and it joined them together in a way that would not easily be broken.

Outside was cool, but quickly warming as the light ground fog started to burn off. Determined to get them as far away from LA as possible, Kyle started them off down the highway, his coat around Sarah’s shoulders. Eventually it became too warm and she handed the coat back to him and he shoved his arms into the holes to hide the bandage on his arm.

“How far are we going to walk?” she finally asked an hour later, her legs burning and her throat parched with thirst.

He shrugged. “Until we’re far enough away from LA.”

“But… that could be anything! A couple more hours away or hundreds of miles. Besides how can he find us, we’re in the middle of nowhere.”

He looked sharply at her and it was on the tip of his tongue to remind her that he wasn’t a he, but an ‘ _it_.’ He realized though that she was already well aware of that. Besides, he reminded himself, the world wasn’t always so black and white, there were grey areas too, Marcus Wright had proved that to the world time and time again. Not all ‘its’ were simply ‘its.’

“It will find us, it’ll always find a way,” he told her.

She blew out a sharp breath in annoyance. “That’s comforting.”

Sarah was silent for about five more minutes before she couldn’t take it anymore. “I know you are going think I am weak, but I can’t walk anymore Kyle, not until I get food and water.”

He looked at her incredulously. The mother of their leader, weak? Hardly! “I don’t think you’re weak. We should eat. The next place we come to, we will stop.” Thinking about the amount of money he had left, he figured they had enough for a decent meal.

The walked for another 30 minutes or so before they came across a little café on the side of the road. Sarah was nearly sobbing with relief when they went in and sat down in one of the booths by the window.

The waitress approached and stopped by their table, a half-hearted smile on her plump face. “What do you kids want to drink?”

“Two waters please,” Sarah replied, looking to Kyle for confirmation, which he replied with a nod.

She left behind two menus and Sarah promptly picked hers up, opening it with enthusiasm and glancing hungrily at the choices.

“I’m starved, what are you thinking about eating?” she asked, glancing around her menu at him.

He had opened his menu but he was looking at it with two furrowed eyebrows, confused at something that she didn’t understand. She leaned forward. “Kyle,” she whispered, “what’s the matter?”

He looked up at her, his eyebrows eventually unfurrowing themselves. “I’ve never heard of half of these things, and the other half I don’t understand.” His cheeks tinged pink, a direct contrast to the bas-ass soldier image he seemed to carry. “I can read, some. But I’ve never seen half of these words.”

Sarah didn’t know what to say.

Kyle shrugged. “I was only two when the bombs fell, reading wasn’t very important until I joined with Connor’s unit. He required all of his soldiers to know how to read enough to get by.”

She nodded, trying to picture this world he described, but found that she failed in the end. It sounded like a nightmare, or Hell. Deciding, she cleared her throat and got up from her side of table to slide in next to him in the booth. “What do you have questions about?” she asked.

Kyle looked back at the menu, his body hyper aware that she was next to him and that they were so close that their thighs were touching. “Um, this says Eggs Benedict, but what is the sauce that goes on top of it?”

“Oh! That says Hollandaise sauce, I think you’d like it.”

He looked at her enquiringly.

“It tastes good I swear, it’s sort of buttery but with a slight tang.”

Kyle nodded, and looked back at the menu, some but not all of the dishes had pictures which eventually helped him decide. The waitress came back and Sarah moved back to her side of the table, feeling oddly hot in the face at their waitress’s knowing look.

Sarah ordered steak and eggs and Kyle got a ham and cheese omelet, deciding that he didn’t want to chance the Hollandaise sauce.

Their food arrived and then they ate quickly, Kyle in a hurry to get moving again. They paid (Sarah forcing him to leave a tip) and exited the diner. Resigned to their fate, they began walking again, every once in awhile wandering into the light wooded areas next to the road if Kyle got a funny feeling or if they could hear a car coming. It was during one of these times that Sarah asked the question that had been on her mind since they had left the diner.

“When did you learn how to read?”

He looked up in surprise before turning back to watch where he was going. “I was sixteen when I joined with Connor’s unit. He rescued me from Skynet.”

“Did my son teach you how to read?” she asked, curious.

“No, my friend Marcus was the one who taught me how. He didn’t sleep much and we stayed up a lot of nights looking over Kate’s books, that is how I learned my letters.”

The sound of a woman’s name coming out of his lips, made a hot streak of jealousy course hard and fast through her veins. It was strange and too fast but she found herself fascinated by the man in front of her, and inexplicably attracted to him.

“Who’s Kate?”

Kyle suddenly stopped walking and she almost ran into the back of him. He chuckled, the first laugh she had heard from him.

“Seems kinda funny telling you this, but Kate is your future daughter-in-law.”

Sarah blinked. “Really?”

He nodded.

“That is bizarre. I have no son but somewhere I’ve got a future daughter-in-law.”

They walked on for awhile, moving back up to the road after a few more minutes.

When an eighteen wheeler crossed their path, Sarah begged for them to ride for awhile instead of walking, and Kyle relented. They flagged down the driver and he pulled to the side.

“You kids have some trouble on the road?” the driver asked them, eyeing Kyle’s dirty clothes.

“No sir, we’re trying to get to Big Bear,” Sarah answered, neck craning up to see the driver.

He nodded. “Well get in then; you two aren’t freaks or anything right?”

Kyle laughed sourly. “No sir.”

He dropped them off further up the road at a little motel called the Tiki. It was nice enough but truth be told, Sarah would be happy with any place that had a bed and a shower. They got a room with a kitchen and when they walked into their room, Sarah could have fallen to her knees in thanks at the sight of the bed.

She plopped down on it as Kyle checked the room, looking out the window and then closely at every nook and cranny.

“I am dying for a shower,” she said, sighing. She looked at Kyle, watching the way held his arm gingerly to his side. “We should check your bandage too.”

He shook his head. “Later, I’m going out for supplies.” He walked towards the door and then stopped, turning back to her.

Kyle pulled the handgun out of his pocket and handed it to her. Truthfully a low caliber weapon wouldn’t do a lot against the machine, but the idea that she at least had a gun with her, made him feel better about leaving her alone for a little bit.

While he was gone, she took a shower, standing under the pounding water for a long time until she became pruny and she felt more like herself again. When she got out, she called her mom and spoke to her for several minutes, knowing that she would be out of her mind with worry.

* * * *

Blair sighed, her back flattened against a block wall as they peered out at a large private airfield, her and Marcus’ eyes trained on a promising helicopter.

“I can’t tell if this is a brilliant idea, or a really stupid one,” she muttered, pulling a piece of twine out of her pocket and tying her hair back so that it would be out of her way.

Marcus glanced at her. “I vote for brilliant and leave it at that. Well, I don’t see anybody, looks like this place is closed on Saturdays.”

It was indeed Saturday morning and they come up with the helicopter idea yesterday afternoon. They had watched the airfield for several hours the previous day and knew that the helicopter they wanted to steal had already been fueled and that the keys were locked in a cabinet in the hanger. If anything it seemed the owner had left them a grand red carpet leading right to the cockpit.

“Alright, this should be easy, we go in and I get the keys,” Marcus announced.

“I have a bad feeling that those will be our famous last words, doesn’t it seem a bit too easy?”

Marcus shook his head. “The owners probably think the locked cabinet is enough to detour any potential thieves. Of course,” he mused sarcastically, “not all thieves have metal for bones.”

Blair gave him a look.

“What?” he asked throwing up his arms.

“You know I don’t like the self-deprecating,” she stated firmly, frowning at him.

He groaned. “It’s the truth!”

“I didn’t like the way you said it. I love you and your metal bones.”

Suddenly the look on his face changed and he grinned. “Yeah you love all my bones.”

Blair glared and gave him a shove. “We’ve been together for six years and you still act like a child.”

Marcus sighed. “Look, I say we steal the helicopter and when we are in the air, you can yell at me some more.”

Blair blew out a sharp breath. “Fine, let’s get this done then.”

As Marcus had predicted, stealing the bird turned out to be a piece of cake. After scaling the wall, Blair got into the cockpit while Marcus punched a hole through the thick metal cabinet and retrieved the key that they needed. He managed to mangle his knuckles in the process, but as long as no one looked too closely no one would see the glint of shiny metal beneath.

Blair flew them away from the airfield and towards the east, heading towards Big Bear. Marcus opened their map on his lap and checked their trajectory. The Tiki Motel was situated just off of Highway 18 and according to the map (which was thankfully detailed enough), there seemed to be a large, secluded open area a few miles east of the motel.

Though Marcus had promised that she could yell at him if she wanted to, she didn’t, in fact they didn’t speak as they flew.

The helicopter, though smaller than the military birds Blair was used to flying, was still roomy enough for four people. The inside interior was mostly grey and black with the dash chrome and inlaid with shiny fancy wood.

They landed thirty minutes later, it was a tight fit but she managed to get it down without problem. The clearing was lined with trees and the sun beat down hotly on them, quickly warming the inside of the helicopter until they could no longer bare it.

“Crap, we’re gonna have to wait outside,” he said, opening his door and getting down.

Blair agreed and followed him, pocketing the key. Deciding, they walked a few feet into the trees and sat down in the shade where it was several degrees cooler.

As the hours passed, waiting became the most dangerous game as the two grew more and more antsy. They would only have the smallest window to save Kyle, if they waited a minute too long… Marcus didn’t want to think about it.

* * * *

Kyle and Sarah spent the evening and part of the night making explosives. She thought, when he had told her what they were going to be doing that it would be tedious, but as it turned out, learning from him could probably never be boring. Seeing him quiet and intently focused on his task showed a completely different side to him. He patiently taught her the steps to making the pipe bombs and if she made a mistake, he corrected it and made her do the step again until she had it right.

After six pipe bombs were completed, he turned off the light and sat by the window, keeping watch and she lay down on the bed, fully clothed. But she couldn’t sleep even though she was exhausted. She couldn’t stop thinking… couldn’t stop thinking about him.

“He’ll find us won’t he?” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

“Probably,” he replied.

She shivered, that thing would never stop following them, and it was a frightening thought. Unable to lie still anymore she got up and went over to him, sitting down beside him in the chair.

“It’ll never be over will it?” she uttered, hands shaking. Eyes teary she spoke again. “Look at me, I’m shaking. Some legend huh? You must be pretty disappointed.”

He turned, such conviction in his face that it stole her breath away. She had never had someone believe in her so much before.

“No, I’m not.”

The silence hung heavy between them.

“Kyle, the women in your time, what are they like?” she asked, remembering her earlier curiosity. Did he have a girlfriend that he left behind? Someone that cared for him?

“Good fighters,” he responded promptly.

“That’s not what I meant. Was there someone special?”

Confusion washed over his face for a second. “Someone?”

“A girl you know,” she supplied, handed fisted in her shirt with nerves.

Recognition shown in his eyes and he turned away from her. “No, never.”

The way he said it made her want to cry. “Never?” In that moment she wanted so badly to touch him that she couldn’t resist. “I’m so sorry.” She didn’t know why she was sorry, but as her fingers trailed across his back, ghosting over old burn scars, she could imagine the pain of them. “So much pain….”

His voice was strangely empty when he spoke, like he was reciting a line. “Pain can be controlled. You just disconnect it.”

Her breath hitched. “So you feel nothing?”

His voice lost its empty quality and when he spoke, she knew this was the real him talking. “John Connor gave me a picture of you once, I didn’t know why at the time. It was very old, torn, faded. You were young like you are now. You seemed just… a little sad, I always used to wonder what you were thinking at that moment. I memorized every line, every curve. I came across time for you Sarah, I love you, I always have.”

Kyle stood and walked away from her and she wiped her eyes with shaking hands. He began shoving the pipe bombs into the bag, shoulders tight with tension. She went after him and when she reached out to touch him, he shied away – he wouldn’t look at her.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” he stated, angry with himself.

She took hold of his face and forced him to look in her direction. Sarah had never been so sure of anything in her life before when she kissed him, lips slanting across his. She kissed him once, twice, three times before he kissed her back with a passion that flamed through her body like wildfire. She’d been kissed before (and more, far more), thought that at age nineteen she knew everything that there was to know about love but the truth is she didn’t think it could ever be like that.

* * * *

The afterglow was rich and warm, until the sound of a dog barking outside made the smile fall from Kyle’s face. They were already dressed but their hair was still tousled.

“Kyle… maybe it’s _just_ barking,” Sarah said hopefully.

Kyle shook his head. “No, come on.” He pulled her over to the little kitchenette and hurriedly opened the window above the sink; pushing out the screen, he helped her onto the counter and then out the window. She jumped down from the window and landed on her feet.

“Kyle!” she hissed when he didn’t immediately appear.

“It’s okay, I’m coming,” he whispered back, handing her the bag of explosives before jumping down himself.

He took her hand and they ran down until they could peek around the side of the building towards the parking lot in front of the building, the dog still barking. It was dark but by the aid of the street lamps, they could see the hulking figure of the Terminator approaching their room.

“When it goes in, we’re going to take that truck,” he instructed her, pointing at the man unlocking his truck in preparation of getting in.

Sarah nodded.

When the Terminator kicked in the hotel room door and opened fire, they sprinted toward the truck. Kyle pulled the driver out of the truck and jumped into the driver’s seat as Sarah got in on the passenger side. Putting the truck in gear, Kyle pushed the peddle to the floor and sped off.

“What’s it driving?” Kyle asked her, switching lanes as the speedometer hurried towards higher and higher speeds.

Sarah turned in her seat. “A motorcycle,” she replied.

Suddenly the Terminator opened fire, spraying the back of the truck with gunshot. Sarah slunk low in her seat and thinking quickly, drew one of their pipe bombs out of the green bag. Kyle nodded as she showed him her idea.

“Switch places!”

They switched and Kyle began lighting and throwing bombs as Sarah raced through the streets of San Bernardino. But as it turned out, throwing bombs so that it was correctly timed proved to be extremely difficult, if not impossible. With a speed that was starting to alarm Sarah, their bombs dwindled and grew to nearly nothing. Kyle was holding the second to last one in his hand, and when he leaned out the window to throw it, the sudden crack of gunfire shattered through the air, and Kyle grunted and dropped the bomb.

Groaning, he fell back against the seat, blood starting to bloom across his blue coat.

“Kyle, oh my God!” she cried.

“Fuck, it’s just my shoulder, not that bad,” he replied, grabbing the handgun and returning fire through the open back window.

The Terminator gained speed and pulled up beside them, seeing the opportunity, Sarah jerked the wheel hard to the left, pinning the Terminator between them and the guardrail. The grinding of metal against metal caused sparks to fly. Pulling away for a moment, Sarah rammed him again, catching the front of the motorcycle and causing the Terminator to finally go down. But in doing so, Sarah lost control, ran up onto curb at high speeds and flipped the truck onto its side where it slid down the road for a few frightening seconds.

As they struggled to get out of the bent and mangled truck, they heard the screech of breaks as a semi ran over the Terminator and then skidded to a halt. Suddenly, everything seemed very hopeless as they watched the Terminator get into the semi, throwing out the driver and passenger. They would be on foot now and Kyle’s shoulder was bleeding; the blood was on her hands now, sticky and warm.

Kyle had just started to tug on her arm to get her to run when suddenly the sound of a helicopter broke through all the other sounds. They looked up at the same time and Kyle’s gasp seemed to reverberate through her whole body it was so loud and deep.

“I don’t fucking believe it…” he muttered, his mouth hanging open in shock.

The semi started to role and the helicopter flew closer to it, hovering just over the trailer half. The helicopter, Sarah could see, was being piloted by a woman with long, dark hair and there was a man holding the back door open, half-in and half-out of the helicopter. Kyle gave a whoop and pulled her out of the way.

“We’re saved, Sarah!” he yelled over the noise, clutching her to him.


	8. Chapter VII

**Chapter VII**

From this height Kyle and Sarah Connor looked a lot like ants scurrying around on the pavement, Marcus thought as he looked down at the smooth silver surface of the top of the semi’s trailer. He looked at Blair who was already looking at him, a worried frown twisting her mouth.

“Wish me luck,” he told her but waited a moment before he jumped, needing to hear her voice first.

“Marcus Wright, if you don’t come back to me alive, I’ll fucking kill you; is that the luck you want?” she replied.

He managed a smile, wishing he could kiss her. “Yes ma’m,” he said before he jumped, sailing through the air before landing with a loud bang on the back of the trailer.

Marcus didn’t have a plan, of course this wasn’t anything knew, it wasn’t often that he had a concrete plan. Though he did have a goal, _kill the heap of metal_ and get out of there before the cops came. He had his gun (or what had become his gun a few short hours before), a fully automatic beauty that they had found stashed in the trunk of the second car they had stolen, and he had his wits.

The Terminator, aware of Marcus’ presence, began to swerve violently in an attempt to dislodge the unwanted passenger. Keeping a tight hold on the gun, Marcus stumbled forward, the only semblance of walking he could muster when the truck was swaying so. Reaching the front, he swung down and landed precariously on the running board. What happened next was the purest of instinct – fight or flight, good vs. evil, battle in its truest form.

Using his mechanical reflexes to the fullest, he wrenched the door open, twisting out of the way when the Terminator reached one, claw like hand out to grab him. The semi still rolling, Marcus jabbed the gun into the Terminator’s neck.

“Time to play with somebody your own size fucker,” Marcus sneered, pulling the trigger.

Bullets fired at a rapid rate, tearing through fake tissue, metal, and cord. The Terminator’s head seemed to bounce to and froe from the force and Marcus gritted his teeth, his hand gripping the gun so tightly that he felt the metal begin to bend under his fingertips.

A moment later the Terminator’s head was shot cleanly off, detaching from its body and flying out the window.

The semi, no longer having anything to control it, turned sharply to the left, the weight of the now decapitated Terminator’s limp arms causing it to veer. He didn’t have time to grab the steering wheel and take back control as the semi raced towards the guardrail. Knowing that he would be pinned if he didn’t move, Marcus climbed back on top of the trailer, moving just in time as the truck slammed into the rail. The concrete cracked and crumbled under the intense pressure and with a bang the semi started to go over the side. Marcus ran and jumped, arms flailing through the air and landing solidly on the road just as the truck creaked over the edge. The semi fell and hit the unfinished road below them with a monstrous thud, an explosion following soon after.

Blair had landed not far away and he ran to them, sirens beginning to approach. He jumped in and she immediately took off, the helicopter whirring to life.

“You okay?” Blair asked him, yelling over the noise.

“Fine,” he replied.

Immediately she started flying east, away from the city and most importantly, law enforcement.

Turning to face Kyle he saw that Sarah was helping him out of his coat and for the first time Marcus noted the blood on Kyle’s clothes.

“You shot?” Marcus asked his friend.

Kyle raised his eyes from his shoulder to look at Marcus. “We’re talking about gunshot wounds, _now_? You’re not supposed to be here, Connor said it would just be me. Not that I’m not real fucking glad to see you though.”

Marcus shrugged. “Couldn’t leave you to fend for yourself in 1984, don’t forget kid that I grew up in this world, it can be rough.”

He watched as Kyle bristled. “I was doing fine by myself, and don’t call me kid.”

“Alright, _Kyle_ , I know you were handling it fine, truth is –” he paused, not knowing how to continue. Through his life Marcus had seen so much death, caused some of it too even, it wasn’t very often that he got to save a life, particularly the life of his best friend. But how to explain that?

But he didn’t have to explain, because understanding dawned across his face. “I was supposed to die back there wasn’t I?” he uttered, swallowing hard.

“Yeah.”

Silence fell through the cabin until Sarah cleared her throat, wiping her hands on her thighs. She stuck out her hand for Marcus to shake, managing a smile. “I’m Sarah Connor, it’s nice to meet you.”

Marcus shook her hand. “Name’s Marcus.”

Sarah also reached forward and shook Blair’s hand when she offered it. “Blair Williams, resistance pilot,” Blair greeted, giving the other woman a smile and a nod.

“I guess you already knew who I was huh?” Sarah said, laughing nervously.

Blair chuckled from the front. “Yeah, we had a pretty good guess.”

* * * *

 _May 15, 1984_

If there was anything George Meyer hated more it was traffic in the morning, in fact on this day it looked like it was going to make him late to work. George was a fairly good man with a wife, two kids, and a steady job as a supervisor at Cyberdyne Systems.

At least the traffic had been explained early that morning when he had watched the news. There had been a freak accident very early in the morning involving a semi-truck, from what the news people had said, there hadn’t been any fatalities, or any people involved for that matter. The question on everyone’s mind that morning was how does a semi dive off a bridge all on its own?

He eventually got to work (thankfully not late) and the rest of the day seemed to drag by until it was finally time to leave for the day. He clocked out at five o’clock and climbed back into his car. Going across the bridge on his way home, George could see that the police and cleanup crews were done and had left, leaving behind a temporary barrier where the guard rail had been obliterated.

George was almost across the bridge when something bright and shiny caught his eye. He pulled his car over once he was off the bridge, and walked back, keeping an eye out for the thing he had seen. From the corner of his eye, it had almost looked like a head, or part of a head. When he found it, the breath was knocked from his lungs. It was wedged deep between the down sloping gutter and the road. It stunk of decay and the skin that covered the metal scull had begun to come off in strips and the hair on top of the head was beginning to pull out in tufts. But beneath the skin and the decay was a technology that George had only read about in science fiction… he was _amazed_.

* * * *

 _February 28, 1985_

Nine months later John Reese Connor was born on a sunny, bright day in Mexico.

Looking down as the newborn baby slept and Sarah rested, Marcus and Blair stood side by side, hand in hand.

“Strange to think that that baby is going to lead us into war one day,” Blair whispered.

Marcus nodded, squeezing her hand and kissing the top of her head. “Have I mentioned how glad I am to have you with me?” he asked, leading them out so that the new parents might have some privacy.

They walked outside, the air muggy and warm. The sun was getting lower and lower in the sky, and as it sunk below the horizon, they watched it, knowing that tomorrow would be the dawn of a new day.

There would be challenges, this they knew already; Connor had warned them of other, more advanced Terminator’s that would arrive throughout the coming years, but they would be ready. Besides in that moment, as the sun set, all that mattered was the smiling, happy parents inside, and the little baby boy, who was the perfect mixture of both of them.

 _The End… for now_


End file.
